Houses

You send me another one, at work, mid-morning, 

pixels flying through the ether to form pictures of a life

five feet closer to perfect: emails that link to dream house

after dream house, each one more virtuous than the next,

at the beach, in the city, hidden in towns we’ve never heard of.

You don’t tire of looking because what if it exists—

that single spectacular find—like an undiscovered planet

in an infant universe spinning miles from the skittish

dogs next door, the cops stopped across the street again,

and the bleary-eyed woman, cigarette alight, 

whose racist slurs fail to break the lawn guy. 

What if it’s out there, far from small-town ugly 

and rural kitsch? The house we live in now, one hundred 

years old, sits on stone, telling fortunes to the wind, whispering 

sweet nothings we love but should ignore. Remember,

years ago, on the train ride out west, my hand 

warm under yours, yours solid over mine as we sliced 

through the night, shrinking valleys and mountains, searching. 

Remember the births—a girl, then a boy—their tiny bodies 

like harbor lights in the darkness of our room, signaling this 

is home? Still, we’re restless: it’s enough and never enough. 

We all deserve a roof—of metal, wood, or clay—but also 

something diaphanous that lets in moonlight and distance, 

that serves up stars in their eternal shining. We’re always 

building houses, all of us, in our blood, in our lover’s eyes, 

real ones for shelter and metaphors to stretch out in as we run.