Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 2 Number 3, December 2001

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House for sale 

By

 Ann Wood Fuller

                                                  

 

  suffer these ruins of what never was.

                                       - - - Richard Howard

 

This house once served its hosts

like guests, giving its best room, its two good chairs

cheerfully.

The walls gave back a rich response

from the cedar growing once

and held in the warmth, held up the roof.

Aloof

in its wooden trim,

this house breathed in

the gulf's salt-air for years.

It listened to each bird-complaint in the eaves.

Now behind each window-dark face,

this house waits like a body waits,

wanting

to be claimed. Oh, I feel old,

held

here in these childless rooms.

How well each post slips into its beam,

the floors broomstung, the tongue

obedient in its groove.

Outside, the night grows

grey.

A young scrub oak

knocks

against the clapboard like a hand.