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January 2022

The House

The Props assist the House -

Until the House is Built -

And then the Props with - draw -

And adequate - Erect -

The House support itself -

And cease to recollect

The Scaffold, and the Carpenter -

Just such a Retrospect

Hath the Perfected Life -

A Past of Plank - and Nail -

And Slowness - then the Stagings drop -

Affirming it - A Soul -

 

- Emily Dickinson #729 (Franklin Variorum 1998)

The House’s guests had trodden its stairs inattentively for days now. Trodden and padded and ambled. It waited flat and angled and protruding, watching from light fixtures for the woman’s hands to move in that certain way they did.

 

Previous efforts of the House had drawn the attention of both the woman and the man. An inconsistent rattling in the ventilation system above their bed had been perfectly frustrating. However, the guests proved an impenetrable team, gripping their pillows and each other’s hands, teasing the House as they tiptoed to the downstairs bedroom where their bodies entwined and they forgot the House. The House had been annoyed, until it hung erect over the woman while her fingers danced symbols into a language the House would never be able to understand. And yet, it tingled with the woman’s emanations.

 

Our house moves and creaks and breathes. What secrets hide in its vibrations and uncontrollable shakes? A steady breath, heavy wind against the frame, shield, sealed from reality. It wakes me up at night… with what message? It swallows, spits – gassy thing.

 

Tonight, suspended and stretched and painted, the House peers at the rotting bananas through shadows cross-hatched blue and orange. It tenses over their short lives and blames the woman for forgetting them. She sits, legs dangling, on the white kitchen stool, just inches from the aged bananas. The House growls, knowing it must prey on the woman while she is alone. With a quick shake, the House knocks the poorly velcroed temporary curtains from the glass patio door, exposing the blind outdoors to the woman. She startles at the movement and stares warily, impossibly, through the glass door, seeing only her own reflection in the darkness. The woman freezes, doe-like, for moments, before reattaching the curtain and releasing a string of words. The House basks in its nude form on the woman’s page, dripping with power.

 

In the daytime it’s my house. At night it houses me– Hounds me

 

Later, the woman cries in the basement, curled under the Cladosporium-colored crocheted blanket with her knees curled up on the couch. The man tramples down the House’s stairs and it lets some scream and some creak – it only has so many outlets to express itself, after all. The man looks alarmed at the woman’s tears but she smiles and tells him how she cries with love and

 

Gratitude for the space the house provides

 

Outside, the neighborhood barn owl flaps his thick wings, like pages of a book, and lands softly on the tree that kisses the hard, outer walls of the House. The barn owl has no barn, no official home, but the soft wood of his favorite Ginkgo tree always welcomes his weary talons. His pale face glints against the dark brick of the House, and he hovers like a ghost for a few minutes before finishing his night hunt. As he quietly soars off, he caresses the House with his feathers, unknowingly grateful for its silent strength.

 

The House shrugs off a tickle without wondering what, or who, had caused it, too busy watching its guests grab each other and squish together on the basement couch. The wind moaning against the House’s windows is still not quite as loud as the woman. The House hangs levelly, a ceiling, a floor, and everything in between. Dented with holes of lightbulbs, sharply slanted, surgically split open with doors and windows, the House sighs under the weight of its body. Who would ever rub their hands on the House like the man and woman do to each other?

 

At sunrise, the barn owl sleepily sails the early morning breeze to the Ginkgo tree, but, on a languid whim, finds himself pulling upwards, landing on the House’s roof, wondering why he’d never thought to explore up here before.

 

Once the man and woman had fallen asleep last night, the House had grown bored and sat impatiently on its foundation. The owl’s touch arouses the House from its stillness. The House slithers its attention to the source, and, through a slit of a door on its roof, the House is able to look out at the barn owl sitting tentatively on its edges.

 

The barn owl ruffles his feathers, feeling the House’s existence there with him. The barn owl notices a change in his state of being – he doesn’t understand the concept of loneliness, but he recognizes, only now that he feels good, that he had been in a kind of pain before. The barn owl likes how the House’s presence makes him feel, realizing it had been the cause of his rare moments of relief, and not the Gingko tree alone. For a while, the House and the barn owl just listen to the sounds of the city with each other, the House forgetting the guests inside it.

 

At nightfall, the barn owl blinks his eyes open and shakes out his feathers, immediately noticing the House’s company and knowing it had been with him all day. Even in the cold winter evening, the barn owl feels warmth surging in his body. He gives the top of the roof a gentle scratch with his talon before propelling into the light-polluted sky to scrounge for city rats and squirrels.

 

Oh, how the House feels open! The barn owl had reminded the House of its existing freedom within its structure. The House lets its energy ripple throughout its frame, leaving at least one crack in its walls. The crack in the tile of the shower welcomes backed-up water into it, and the House shudders with the weight of the water in its walls. The House is bursting, so why does it feel so good?

 

As it leaks from the ceiling, the House excitedly awaits the reaction of the man and the woman. Their body language indicates that they seem to appreciate the House’s spontaneous explosion less than the House does. But later the House tingles, feeling the woman reflect.

 

At my makeshift desk of – how I wish I knew the type – some kind of deep wood, I think of you. It’s been a while. House, how are you? Did you crack your walls begging for our attention? Leaking to remind us of you? Power to the water, and to you, for your labyrinth of shapely walls and beams and wood and metal and brick and? House, what are you made of? Please strip down for me to see where you held the water and where it choked you – did it hurt when the water flooded into you? I thought I felt your tears hit me from the ceiling. I notice you, house. Ha! You acknowledge me with a runny refrigerator, and the ice drops and clinks like a chuckle.

 

In fact, the House can understand nothing but the feeling the woman and her writing emit. The House warms under the gaze of the writer, but it’s nothing compared to the barn owl’s presence earlier. The House knows a new kind of power now.