I woke to a plaster-covered floor
as if my ceiling had given up on
holding itself, this house, together.
I stepped through the mess to dress
and do my best to live the day, as if
it were any other, as if my home
hadn't just fallen around me.
as if my ceiling had given up on
holding itself, this house, together.
I stepped through the mess to dress
and do my best to live the day, as if
it were any other, as if my home
hadn't just fallen around me.

Christine Brandel is a writer and photographer. Her book A Wife is a Hope Chest will appear in 2017 as the first full-length collection in the Mineral Point Poetry Series from Brain Mill Press. She also writes a column on comedy for PopMatters and rights the world's wrongs via her character, Miss Agatha Whitt-Wellington, at Everyone Needs An Algonquin. More of her work can be found here.