i used to dream we lived in a house of
sorrow i searched night after night in room after
room grown smaller and smaller to find your spring birdsong
voice and your summer blue eyes

i was so careful with our sorrow i carried
it cradled it crawling through our shrinking twisting
house on my belly squeezing through broken doors into secret halls
collapsing under the weight of loss

on my last night in this house of dreams still on
my belly still all alone i found a door in the dark i stood
i stepped into it stumbled through onto a staircase spiraling away from the
red autumn day when i survived you

on my feet i climbed up and out of this house to a place
of new promise where those moonless black nights are become
shining blue skies on clear winter mornings with bright window glass warming me
but i still love you and still want our years