Jittery Nocturne
       

Outside after a bad dream —no stars,
no canopy of leaves— just streets

and down those streets, like large
flat rocks in the middle of a stream, my neighbors' houses.

.

But sometimes, walking around, straight ahead
on sidewalks, I correspond with arguments

swimming at the heart of houses, and move parallel

to their interiors: old clothes, crates,
canned peaches —everything

sinking to the bottom of the bottom of houses.

.

Rain, starting slowly, thuds

the metal bottom of a boat— a sound you know in the middle
of the night in houses. And there's a current pulling

at the boat, the movement of debt— we do not
own these houses.

.

Often I am brushed on the leg —right in the kitchen! —
by a fish, yet my sisters trust the integrity of houses.

Lately I'm happy to be having the sex I am having
most often now, inside of houses.

Those tiny, inquisitive sea horses, flickering
here and there— How they addressed us we will remember in houses.

.

Later, like an allowance, the moon coming round: fat, white

Later the moon floods
the alleys, empties the rooms of our houses.

.

How I know I am not happens most often in houses:
creaking the floorboards, slowly breathing in houses.

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Copyright © 2021 Kate Northrop All rights reserved
from Sugar House Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission