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I Bought This House From a Friend

Hedy Zimra

for Kirstin Allio

1.

I live in your house.
My bed stands exactly where yours once did.
Wide plank floors. The house
doesn’t seem fancy anymore. The water
In my shower would scald your pastel
derma; diaphanous
Weathered. Tempered with tone, grace
Mayflower. You hail from lands with sequestered
cemeteries, first names colliding with last.
GOOD BONES
Like this house. Marble like the fireplaces.
Alabaster like your skin.

2.

Not like my people. On deck, on
foot. Step from pogrom. Cantilever noses.
Two fingers in front of the face have pushed eyes
into the skull’s briny depth. Abrupt people—in
stature as well, stunted. Starved.
Gaunt.

3.

I’m certain this house is haunted. It
leans
to the left.

4.

I don’t much care for the neighbors. Can you
guess which ones? No curtains were hung for most
of winter. Spartan. Virtue. Nudity doesn’t
embarrass me.
I scream often. Even when the
house is empty

5.

You wrote your book upstairs, looking
out over Benefit to what my second child
called President Court. Georgia marble.
Dome like the Taj.
She no longer wears a helmet.

6.

Beds are where my best work
is done.