New Tenant

Twice she asked me

to show her

how the back door

worked.

Her dogs plaited

braids with

our legs.

Then we moved

on to the sprinklers,

and the mechanism

by which they shut.

I showed her the club

long and wooden

in the shed

and she picked it up,

dragged it to the house

and set it next to the bedside

table with the water glass

she’d already found

time to fill.