The Creak of Settling Bones

The house leaned toward us,

already tired of standing.

The door stayed open

as if it had learned not to expect anyone.

The garden was bare.

Not ruined -

emptied.

Still, we entered, believing

this was the moment before repair.

We worked quietly.

Hammer, nail, silence.

We told ourselves this was devotion.

We told ourselves effort

could substitute for permission.

Each year the house accepted less.

The porch sank, taking the lilac with it.

The apples grew sparse.

Our voices followed.

It wasn’t dramatic.

Nothing collapsed all at once.

The house simply aged faster than we did,

as if it knew something

we refused to learn.

We lived there anyway -

between cracks, inside weather,

calling endurance a kind of joy.

We said: this is enough.

We said it often.

Now we sit where the floor has settled,

listening to the structure remember us

more accurately than we remember ourselves.

We thought we were building a life.

Perhaps we were only leaving sound behind -

footsteps, breath, the long habit of staying.

The house keeps it all.

It does not give it back.

GBS jr

2020