I show my house the pictures of you ask it if it remembers when you lived closer when you were a frequent guest. I feel the ache and the strain of a house trying to uproot itself, as if it were some great, lazy dog trying to find the will to move twitching its tail in a futile attempt to attract attention to itself.
I, too, wish I could find some way to reach you that doesn’t require the enormous effort it takes to get to the airport or make plans that involve weeks and weeks of my life in advance. These are fragile excuses, ones I don’t dare speak aloud. Instead, I tell the house
you’ll be back someday to sit on my couch and fill these empty rooms with your stories and your laughter and it will be so wonderful that it will be as if you’d never left.
Published on Ancient Paths online on June 1, 2019