every room a soft grained
fraction of a dream
when lived in for years and the path
of blood from the dog you followed
through the hall, the black fur gleaming,
comes back around as you scuff the floor
after dark, no need for light
with one hand raised before you.
the weave of rug now gold turned gray
of the teacher’s house, a broad desk
marked with soft color, small strokes painted under
the curved face of Frida Kahlo,
cracked violets branching on the walls,
French prints hung from eaves,
and the long shelf’s untempered lean.
the small breaks in lacquer
of the cabinet at the old house
that traveled over with the change,
claw feet in carpet
of a table once beside the couch, tall frames marked with
long lines of paint, you can see them
in sleep that’s less than dreaming, turning back
to the wall that shouldn’t be
from the old space of the last house,
and in a new bed
across the city to stay the length
of five years but still waiting
in the hard silence of near quiet,
staring at the walls as they bend
back around to form the names
very slowly as the wood makes sense,
warm lights burned to embers,
in dreams the paths worn in phosphorescence.
