Poem of the Week #47

Two Houses

Your house is a thinking house.
The lights are on all night.
The bookshelves make a fine argument,
and even the doorknobs cogitate.

Your house is a thinking house.
Ideas are its bricks and thought
its mortar. Let no one enter
who is lacking in logic

for this house will put him to the test:
quadratic equations in the kitchen
semantics on the sunporch
biology in the bedroom.

My house is a feeling house.
The wood beneath my feet
cries when I step, the windows
turn their mirrored faces to the moon.

My house is a feeling house.
It smells like sage and sausage
and the curtains hold the songs
of yesteryear between their folds.

The desk is inscribed with my letters,
the ones I never had the nerve to send.
The banister recalls a thousand touches,
and the hall closet, an old felt hat.


Lisa Vihos