April 2023

April 2023

By god, the new leaves. Bygone, the flowers. The dogwood holding bouquets in the yard, and the dog holding watch on the front porch. None of them mine, I know. Not the girl, not the dog, not the eggs in the nest on the porch.

And I’m not theirs.

But we’re happy enough to make homes of each other. Happy enough to call it Spring, and watch the violets, the bees. Their tete-a-tetes. Their serious love and casual affairs.

I want to do something nice for you, the girl says with the idea of her cheek against the linoleum. She is stuck again in bed. Like the mice in the traps. I don’t care for nice. I am a house, not a headstone.

The girl scrubs my dishes, my sink, my floor. The girl sets more traps. The girl brings people in and sends people out. I hold very still. Very quiet. I scrub them back with new leaves. With dog on the porch. With silence. With silence.

They check their pockets. Their purses. Their people. They scrub the faces of the things they own with a wet rag and send them out to play again. I have no pockets. No purse.

But the girl peels my windows open like the fingers of a closed hand. I have the rabbits in the yard. The lemon balm by the back steps. We have each other.

We are happy enough,

the apple house