Noise

I hear voices in the fan, as it whirls and shifts,
heartbeats and sighs circle round the air conditioner as it
takes in the heat and breathes out cool.
The house shifts and settles,
creaks and crackles, 
echoes of my own bones as I move about
like Jonah in my own private whale,
like some marionette skeleton doing the "danse macabre".
The cat and the dog hear and see what I cannot,
and yet they trust that it will be me,
the resident caretaker,
who investigates and makes
the offending noises abate.
And with all the birds, and animals, and insects -
with all the machines that whirr and click,
still it is the human noise that
stiffens my spine and makes my flesh come up
in goose pimples, hair standing at attention,
listening for the cue to fight or flee.