Louise Brooke: Brick-dust

“It’s just a heap of ruin,
A drunken brick carouse—
This thing my spirit grew in
That once was called a house.

An attic where I scribbled
Through baking summer days,
While street-pianos nibbled
At the patient Marseillaise.

The spider-landlord squatted
In a web of dinner-smells,
And people slowly rotted
In little gossip-hells.

I hated all I learned there—
And yet I could have cried
For a little oil I burned there,
A little dream that died. ”