~KAREN KOVACIK~

FLOODING THE HOUSE

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Roll up the sunshine and clean wood floors—
boom out the low notes in baritone hymns
for my loved house without windows or doors.

Fashion a rowboat with soup spoons for oars.
Hack holes in the roof, let the rain pour in
then roll up the sunshine and clean wood floors.

Imagine old Noah with no view of shore.
Dispatch Gulliver and the Brothers Grimm
to my strange house without windows or doors.

Empty the cupboards, the tall chest of drawers.
Cull bookshelves of rendezvous, wild and prim.
Roll up the sunshine and clean wood floors.

Then turn on the hoses and let them pour:
bring buckets of catfish to root and swim
in my drowned house without windows or doors.

Let teacups cascade on the stream’s corridor,
the bedroom’s pond now swampy and dim.
The sun rides the rapids over wood floors
in this, my house, without windows or doors.

© by Karen Kovacik