An Old Woman and Her Old House

How will the tired house survive without her?Without her shuffle through the living room,past the lamp with the fringed shade,past the stairs hewn in that other time,without her groans as she lowers herselfinto her cold winter bed?

Her memories are etched on window glassin frost, delicate, temporal, in the heat of struggle.Floorboards in the kitchen bulge.Through holes in linoleum, layers of colorsfrom the past stare up at her, like vacant eyes.

The timber of her voice is engrained in rafters.Her quiet sorrow has bowed the door framewhere her hand grasps for balance. Withoutall her talk to herself, will the plaster crumble,will the cupboards tremble, fling open their doors?

For fifty-eight years, she swept, cookedfor family, sat awake all night stokingfire in the wood stove so frost could not enterthe walls. She cared for its light, its water.Lately, her white fragility has kept them apart.

But, sometimes, on Sundays, she wills her bones,her muscle-rope legs, across the porch,over the threshold, into her world wherethe old gas heater clangs and blows warm.

The house creaks its greeting. Inside partitions,mice race to spread the news. Iciclesdangling low off the tin roof, rumble, fall.