A House upon the Height recording
—Emily Dickinson
The fence that runs the road hems the house in,
thigh-high grass and clover tight, pushing back
through the wire slats. The farmer’s wife
next door says teenagers used to trespass
and do who knows what they do. Call next time,
she warns, so I know who you are. Great-granddaughter
of a man who grew up here, I haven’t needed a place
to press my lips to other desperate lips in years.
Years, it looks, since kids have bothered trying—
the floorboards rotted out, windowpanes gone,
the siding like a salt-eaten wreck. The whole house,
sunk in its center, tugged under, the porch’s edges
curling in June. And still I want to trace my fingers
through the dust of these closed and failing rooms.
