CANAL

It’s raining inside our bedroom.
Water pools in the window sill and sluices down the wall like long wet fingers.
With flashlights, we investigate. The storm windows will need
to be fixed. There is no turning back.
We are homeowners
now,
you and I. 

AGORA

Hundreds of ruby-mantled beetles huddle under hot lamplight.
Prickly neighborhood ladies, they cling to the sandstone facade with spindly
legs, gossiping over our character and intentions. All month they assemble
’til one morning they vanish,
leaving no trace
of their ritual. 

TENEMENT

From the depths of the garage, the cable guy carries an ancient honeycomb.
It’s big as a large screen TV. I imagine bees in the attic and bees in the walls,
perturbed by the sounds of our shuffling, murmurs, lovemaking.
I am willing to compromise on hours, hoping
never to hear
the buzz
of a thousand wings.  

ARCHAEOLOGY

My trowel hits metal, I unearth a horseshoe.
Our house stands near a hundred-year-old farm, where cows and horses
once grazed. They say it’s good luck to nail a horseshoe on the wall,
U-side up. I prefer to return the past to the past. I toss the relic
into the hole and plant
a constellation
of purple pansies. 

SUBWAY

Autumn light spreads like a map across the kitchen cabinets.
We drink wine and make angel hair pasta. Outside, spiders spin
diaphanous tunnels in eaves and tree branches. A tangerine vixen
with a white-tipped tail watches a grumpy groundhog
trundle to his subterranean network.
Everywhere the low,
slow rumble
of life.

 CANOPY

Oak and evergreen enjoin with black cherry in a leafy theater.
Acorns drop to the porch, bounce from the boards, and roll to the soft
ground. They fall like years passing. A pair of squirrels enjoys
the buffet. Groundhog and fox are late-risers.
They do not complain
about the quality
of leftovers.

 AIRPORT

Nuthatches, chickadees, finches take turns at the feeder.
Overhead passes the sleight shadow of hawk wings, Coopers
and red-tail. Their flight patterns are invisible to the human eye.
One hawk glides to a landing upon the rail, glass-eyed,
proud-breasted. Birdsong and raptor
calls mark the hours
of our day.

 SIREN

Like a wild harpy, wind shrieks through the grove.
The cats watch, wide-eyed, as rain pelts the windowpane. On such nights
we make our own drama: a wood fire. Later the storm dissolves,
leaving air perfumed by wet clay.
It is bone quiet. Embers fall
with the hush
of a slippered foot.

DWELLING

Do you remember when it used to rain inside our bedroom?
Twenty-one years, eighty-four seasons. We do not inhabit the house,
it inhabits us. Beetle, branch, acorn,
fur. Web, whisker, wing. Outside,
inside, nothing is ours. Water,
wind, star, sun.
We are
mere tenants.