it must be strange to be a house by Deirdre Fagan

feet on your floorboards,

individuals dusting your windowsill.

the chimney drawing deeply from you

your often-held empty breaths.

when i was a child, i dreamt of climbing

over doors and around light fixtures,

the house upside down, or me.

they say a house is not a home.

but once you can feel the switches, 

navigate light and dark, you are 

where you are, whether you want 

to be or not. it must be strange.

to be a house is to be always

inhabited by others, a container

for those who invade without notice.

knocks at the door often unwelcome.

when i was a child, i crept across the ceiling,

safe from whomever was below. safe keeping

was in my own hands as i swung legs over door

frames, escaping myself room by room.

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Deirdre Fagan is a widow, wife, mother of two and associate professor and coordinator of creative writing at Ferris State University. Fagan is the author of Find a Place for Me, (Pact Press, forthcoming, 2022), The Grief Eater, (Adelaide Books, 2020), and Have Love, (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Her poems have recently appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, MORIA, Muddy River Poetry Review, Rat’s Ass Review, and Thimble. Meet her at deirdrefagan.com