As long as peace lasts

The House

Even after the Romans
people pass.
Someone (imagined) in Carlisle, 2004:

The sounds belong to my ears,
the doors to my hands, the red tiles
to my eyes, the floors to my daughters
and attics to my sons, and vice versa,

it all belongs to me, I live just like I sleep
beneath the safe roof of my breathing,
until the wind makes the walls shake,
forgets the tiles with my sight, and falls still.

It’ll be a different wind that’s blowing through the house.
Perhaps you’re with me still, perhaps
you’re not. It’ll be a different wind.

Someone has a house, the sounds belong
to her ears, the doors to her hands,
but it isn’t me. We are not here.