The House on the Hill

STILLPOINT LITERARY MAGAZINE | VOL. 52 | 2021

Someone walks over my grave 

When I peer past grays 

Shit porches and ugly bricks 

Hear you me: still 

At the house on the hill, 

The stars in daytime that 

Break pages and 

Pass lines (not so much in between) 

Almost touchable, tangible, real 

But it is! Listen, 

Stand in the driveway but 

Ignore yesterday’s leftovers and, and? 

Don’t you see it? 

Cold coffee beside three eggs pans 

At 4:27 P.M. 

I’m searching for another warmth: 

The collective since my internal is failing 

And you need someone to laugh at 

Though the signs aren’t welcoming 

Balance yourself on the edge, here. 

Poisonous plant (I think it’s dead) 

Pollute my dreams of a college suburbia even though I 

Bought you a broom 

That they never use so I 

Avoid the kitchen; I refuse 

To enable my gag reflex consciously 

Hungry for cinnamon tea and stupid humor 

Hungry for cinnamon tea and stupid humor 

Aunty Donna’s for dinner 

Clown shoes, mismatched, unpaired 

Propped on falling cushions and a three-legged chair 

Dental floss (a bow on my finger) 

Christmas lights (slow burn) 

Simpsons or Seinfeld 

Ashes linger as we take turns on 

Musicians and politicians and an environmentalist but 

Missionaries flee from here 

Welcome, dark, 

The highway’s headlights are nothing 

Compared to their shining sky 

We’re glad I’m here! 

You are the brightest building 

At 1:58 in the morning 

Denver in the sky and the Ganges full of slime 

Boston is freezing but tell Catherine I say hi 

Don’t cry, sweet Caroline, 

Remember the tiny hands? 

Remember your freshman year cover band? 

Do you remember when I yelled at you for wearing our rival’s shorts? 

You broke my heart, but you put it back together 

Two years later 

In the place of giggles and snorts 

Kitchen fires and spaghetti on the wall 

(Thank God my bathtub was never filled with goldfish) 

They are you and you are they 

Since forever, until this May.