The house is endless only in its emptiness, so vast
there seemed trapped the wind itself. And what this woman wants
appears in necklaces and the oven light, in rain strokes
against the window pane.
Or does it manifest in the fire’s dying,
the dark promise behind curtains?
In the corridors, she’s planted seasons: from doorstep
to stairwell a frost sutures the carpet.
Spring blossoms staircase to bedroom. She tends the tulips
as they ease apart floorboards. In the bathroom’s autumn,
an apple tree drops abundance
into the tub, leaves the porcelain reddened, bruised.
A desert swells its sands across the kitchen counters.
The dishes dusted. Tawny waves against chair legs.
She steps through, leaving
shallow shadows behind her. Locusts in the bookshelf offer
a hollow city of noise, the choir mourning
like a solemn march, like the funeral that it was.
photo credit: Vmenkov via Wikipedia Commons
