The Developer

by Brett Rutherford

     After the 11^th-century Anglo-Saxon

Even before your birth
a home was built for you.
Your sculptured form was carved
to adorn its courtyard
even before your mother bore you.
We have planned for everything:
how many floors, how deep the lot
(these things are not determined
until I bring you to it.
Imagine not having to worry
about room enough for all
those honors and possessions!)

Here, in this vestibule remain
until I measure you
and the matching sod of earth.
The ceiling is too low, you say?
It is not highly built.
"Unhigh" or "low" are just two ways
to look at today's economies
of scale and space.
Too low to stand, I see,
too narrow for arm-swing.

I am here for you. See here:
the roof is built just up
to the breast's proud swell,
and no further. Horizontal?
A matter of perspective,
of marketing and branding.

In fact, we have already arrived.
I wanted to surprise you. Right here
you shall dwell full cold,
in dimness and darkness,
hearth-black, a cauldron cold
with, shall we say honestly,
an air of putrefaction.

Your new house needs no door
(a flat stone, a quaint barrow
of piled rocks for that pagan look),
nor is is lit within. Go in,
and feel yourself detained
in windowless darkness. Never
again will you need a house-key,
no phone, no lamp, no keeping out
your new neighbors, the creeping
and crawling things who just cannot
wait to make your acquaintance.
The worms come round
for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

You have no need of friends.
They will not come anyway,
not after the feasting, songs,
and fights over your belongings —
save for that one who digs,
opens the earth-top remembering
your strong arms, your kisses,
or, more likely, that golden finger-
ring they did not dare remove,

and seeing you at home this way,
he shall sicken and drop
the midnight shovel, for you
shall have become loathsome,
even to the sun and stars.

I take no fee for this.
Death am I, and I have done my due.