like a house,
temporary but elegant for its time
& in the spaces between
most especially its i-beams
full of possessions and possessed
yet leaving enough closet-feet
forman ancient mariner's leather case
or take a future martyr's
mother taken by the urn,
bedded for the night
& ending with a polite doorstop
of spousal after-phrase
the basement has darkly painted toes
& the attic
florid with honeybun hair
tangled gray and jet black
is the siren head,
& at the navel door
part time thieves
& spurned architects
equally desirous of a well-worn
chair by the hearth
ask for an Isabel Allende
character in perfect Spanish
because the best-appointed spaces
fill with unpublished
disputes, debaucheries,
deceptions to ripen into epic
archways & purified fascia,
theater history,
Lear-feet upon the stairs,
Mrs. Dalloway hands on the cutlery
and lengthening shadows
through frayed curtains
seep into builder vacuum
of body cavities