From cave to shack to shanty
Luscious forest canopy
Humble abode, tenement slum
Brazilian hillside favelas
60’s high-rise, urban sprawl
90’s, noughties boom and bust
from all of this
our shelters from the storm evolve.

Hearth, once open,
invites only isolation in for tea –
where gadgets talk to satellites
that talk to family.
And strangers alike.
A world of breathless talkers, texters
connected, whatever.
Deaf to each other.

We have retreated inside
tongues tied by stigma,
cut adrift on a commode
of festering demons,
eyes blind
to the interconnectedness of a toilet pot;
that hub of revelation
where popes and poets
politicians and paupers
and the rest of the worst
and the best of us
unload
the burden of stature or status,
succumb to the true nature of things
and come to understand
the great leveler of a toilet lid
in the upright position.