House

Needy fingers making
a path through your hair,
a new part where a comb finds
the soul under the brain
that keeps you
wondering about the world,

Lustful italics
contain consonants
that are not quite
the words we
started to speak,

Those nights, half asleep,
a small fist raps your back,
floorboards groaning
the way they do in old houses
sagging, tired lumber ,
all that's left for spring is laughter
and fear when everyone
goes out doors again after dark,
testing door knobs
with a twist of the wrist,
it wasn't you ,
you say, only the house
or some such thing,

Shared chills or beads of sweat,

the double “s” molding prevailed,

every position and posture

on the mattress a buried language,

nothing weighs less than an unwanted ton,

we change positions

as if speaking too fast for court reporters,

"I hope I don't dream" you say,

" or if I do,

let it be of a big black wall

with nothing on it,

just blackness, blackness..."

The apartment is so quiet
that the refrigerator
sings us to sleep,
a high, whistling serenade

We drift off

as headlights flash

across the ceiling

and car radios play music pulled

from the air from other states,

we drift off as the house
sinks deeper
into an earth
that wants everything returned.



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