Usurper

The thunder growls

an invitation

so I take myself

up the stairs

the trapped air

moves around me

presses back

heat around my

neck, like a hand-

I should have 

opened the windows-

the sudden 

brightness on the terrace

startles a bat

into panicked swoops

once twice thrice

and then into

the blessed dark 

of the coconut

People who love me

tell me to leave

this place

but I've let 

the baby lizards be

and placed buckets

under leaking roofs

and there's a spider

in the kitchen

weaving an increasingly

wide web

and there are spaces

in this house

that say

do not disturb

so I'm careful where I

reach my hand

or place my feet

and there are silences

in this house

that slot into mine

so neatly

as though they'd been waiting-

there's the smell of rain

in the air,

but I've been mistaken before-

the bat takes off again,

impatient, possibly,

for the usurper

to be gone.