House

House

We live in a house that rests on block walls

laid on shallow footings in the sandy

soil of an old lake bed shot through with the

roots of big oaks and sycamores, nineteenth

century farm rubble and chunks of slag

from the carriage house that once stood in the

southeast corner of the yard, earth that sheds

water, basement a tooth set in a dry

socket. 

We live in a house, current occupants

sharing rooms packed with ghosts, two or three to

a chair at dinner, cheek by jowl in the

tub where we manage to hold on to our

dignity amid all those feet fighting

for purchase, sharing the soap, backs pressed up

against the cold tile wall, eyeing the one

dry towel. 

We live in a house spanned by two solid

yellow pine beams, the pair end to end perched

on stacked block walls, forever balanced, chaste

kiss atop one spindly metal pole that

bears the weight of our lives, a circus act

I prefer not to think about when I’m

drifting off to sleep in our bed on the

top floor. 

We live in a house that reveals secrets

to the unlucky, the unwary, flawed

gems I collect in my pocket, closing

my hand around them, imbued talismans

of ownership I know by shape and heft,

imperfection, after all, the sandy

soil that roots us together in this place.