— after Alison Prine
I was here before the house came down.


I ran up its carpeted stairs,

my feet bare; I stood dripping

in a towel just outside the bedroom door;

I daydreamt of making a mural

of the hallway wall,

my hands full of tacks and yarn.
I came along the backcountry road,

its tar hot and melting in the August sun.

I passed a boy playing crow

in a cornfield, daring a rifle to shoot.
I was here before the house came down.

My feet wore holes in the carpeted stairs.

I wanted this place to remember me,

though I didn’t know I’d leave it —
or rather, it left me.

I was the one calling out its name.