That I am going to walk through today with
a stranger
has more rooms than I need and
needs more money than I have and I
don’t need all that space now but
it is old and has a wide porch that
looks over the Fox River, flowing north, and
it has enough room for things I don’t
yet know will come to me, people
or a cat instead of the usual dog or maybe
sheets of writing paper shredded into
bits, roomfuls of it that I’ll have to
make into pieces of paper again
before I can write on them, and then only
after I’ve foraged some pens that use
ink and not blood.
Last night I dreamed that I was
walking through the house I live in, which
was not my house at all, and like a discoverer
hacking through my subconscious jungle
I came upon undiscovered rooms upon rooms,
and a coffeehouse that had been there the whole time,
all set up for customers, and screened porches that I
could have made into my office, and
a back yard with lightning bugs
and a beach with Adirondack chairs on a lake
that I had never known was there.
I only found these things upon leaving.
This morning there is no
cafe no
porches no
beach – just
me
and some boxes, and a ticking
grandfather clock that your family
handed down.
But I know there are more
rooms hidden in the bones of me,
more rivers that flow north,
and that there are things I will only find
upon waking.
Halfway North 