A HOUSE OF SEASONS
Summer is the attic.
Dead boxelder bugs
litter the sills.
Chests hold breaths
of yellowing letters.
You cannot stay
up here long,
soon you must
descend the stairs,
come down from
the height and heat
into the kitchen
which is autumn,
where the light is
the color of broth
and pheasant feathers
in brown bottles
are the only bouquets.
In the wood stove,
ashes and nails.
The kettle is cold,
the cupboard empty.
Descend the steep
cellar stairs into winter
where the preserves
of dead gardens are
kept and pale spiders
try their wares.
A dead steer
in the freezer,
and a cairn of coal.
Now that you've been
to the nadir of the year,
you may ascend
to the bedroom where
spring survives
in the wallpaper
and the headboard
gouged with a pattern
of flowering foliage.
Lie back in bed,
read her letter
again, the bluest ink
on the whitest paper.
Summer is the attic.
Dead boxelder bugs
litter the sills.
Chests hold breaths
of yellowing letters.
You cannot stay
up here long,
soon you must
descend the stairs,
come down from
the height and heat
into the kitchen
which is autumn,
where the light is
the color of broth
and pheasant feathers
in brown bottles
are the only bouquets.
In the wood stove,
ashes and nails.
The kettle is cold,
the cupboard empty.
Descend the steep
cellar stairs into winter
where the preserves
of dead gardens are
kept and pale spiders
try their wares.
A dead steer
in the freezer,
and a cairn of coal.
Now that you've been
to the nadir of the year,
you may ascend
to the bedroom where
spring survives
in the wallpaper
and the headboard
gouged with a pattern
of flowering foliage.
Lie back in bed,
read her letter
again, the bluest ink
on the whitest paper.