THE HOUSE
She folds a piece of typing paper
into a house. Let’s live here, she says,
as she makes herself tiny. I follow, and we enter
lives that feel suddenly new, surrounded
by walls and a ceiling so drenched in light
we squint as we look at each other.
Our new house lacks windows, so we watch the walls
for shadows. Soon we’ll have to scissor some doors
so we can move around outside again
but for now we’re content with each other and the white
walls and our shadows against the white walls,
which move as though we were dancing.
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MICHAEL HETTICH is author of over a dozen books and chapbooks of poems. His most recent book, The Frozen Harbor, won the 2017 David Martinson/Meadowhawk Prize from Red Dragonfly Press, as well as a Florida Book Award (bronze). His previous book, Systems of Vanishing, won the Tampa Review Prize and was published by University of Tampa Press in 2014. His work has appeared in many journals as well as in a few anthologies. He lives with his family in Miami.
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Read more by Michael Hettich:
Author’s website
Two poems in Split Rock Review