PoetryView
by Sam Pierstorff
The House Outside our Homes
I.
The four walls pucker the way cheeks do
when the tongue has tasted something bitter.
The sky has committed itself to rain.
The roof wants to give up.
Underneath, a girl hears the plinking
of the drops against the bony house.
II.
You might want to know
what it would be like to live there,
but you’ve never stopped
to ask the young girl in the splintered home
how well the tractor tire works as a swing—
dangling from the fat willow branch.
III.
Today, she has gone to school.
Her house exists inside her like a broken rib.
They know where she has come from;
they have seen her walking home.
She doesn’t hurry; her left foot is slow. She limps—
or the world is crooked.
