That house doesn’t seem to have
aged a day, stuck somewhere in the limbo
before I was born. 
We’d explore the basement, placed
squarely in between your professions
of teacher and taxidermist,
not quite sure whether we would
learn something new
or unearth the unburied.
The world down there coated in dust
and disarray. The piano with dead keys.
The discarded knick-knacks and remnants
of a forgotten time. I fell in love with a 
rotary-dial telephone we exhumed.
Remember the quiet mechanical whir
as it returned home after each number.
Sometimes I wonder if the wires
could get crossed, if I could call
those still breathing
in the year that house is still trapped.