Building Science

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Building Science


Before you knew about air-sealing, 

how conditioned air slips through the ceiling


where the top-plates joint the drywall

and all the other holes for wire, venting, 


and the like, the house was built 

right. Before, of a given afternoon,


some uninvited word peeled back 

the insufficient insulation of your life 


to show you just how much was being 

lost, how far from code you’d strayed,


(or rather, how laughably thin the code

has become for what they'll pass


these days,) you might have kicked back

the lazy chair and passed for something like


content, ignorant of just how inefficiently 

breath leaks between your ribs, just how much


you're paying for it. But now,

the illusion of structurally sound 


torn down to the studs, there’s no going

back. You're forever a fugitive in your own


house, wind wracking this wasteland

you wander. At least boredom is a solid option


no longer, your days stretched out

like trusses for toeing, your new knowing


searing like light through too many cracks

than you could ever hope to caulk.

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