beams, the high ceilings –
the minute I was there I felt
the countdown to my cousin’s sofa start
and was restless,
filled with the frantic boredom I had felt at
Boatswain’s Clench.
Instead of profound artistic musings, I would
spend the days and nights imagining what it might be
like to own a place like this – to never have to leave.
This tree, I’d think, this pine tree with its perfect
trunk that glows a sort of golden-pink at dusk as though
it had been set alight
belongs
to someone.
This freezing river with its trout and mossy stones
is private – I am here because they’ve let me in.
I can watch the dragonfly now,
but only now.
Do you understand, Ava?
I couldn’t stop glitching over that one same truth –
Goodlord. Goodlot. Goodloan.
Not having.
Ava, I wasted those visits
wanting,
Whose woods these are I think I know
that’s Frost, Ava,
you dopey bitch. I’m sorry.
Today I googled, is it OK to want somebody dead.
The answer: Absolutely.
I don’t want to pause and watch some other person’s
woods, Ava.
Do you own a house?
One morning while in residence at a calendar house –
you know what that is?
Your field, not mine – though I highly doubt
you’ve dealt with properties like those…
three hundred and sixty-five windows, fifty-
two rooms, twelve chimneys, seven staircases –
ridiculous really,
but if you’re building a house that
