house : an essay

cupboard painted almost shut above the bathtub claw white spread
soapy water on the floor. the basement full of holes the steps outside
the crack a through light. door behind the washer/drier thirty years
or more unbroke, a hand held finally empty. what else makes a house?
a hundred more years a red brick addition in the yard, the back shed
crawlspace 1950s radio.

what kitchen made the wood stove, green painted chair of layers bruise
a dozen colour down to wood, a strip mine making; made of wood &
comfort coal, the furnace papers we would start & cords; dusty
reservoir bore earth long the shelf of spider web & jars on concrete
floor & shelves, a camera could his father still have film, souls away a
stone a stone held out for finding decades spent.

a state of rotting wood & brick, where slow becomes the trellis & the
yard, as trees grown overflow w/ bushes air conditioned window; soft
as blouses, blow; brown paint on scarlet brushes, banister the hard white,
where gravity down the stairs takes little legs & bottoms.