The Hour House

The Hour House

Inside the Hour House
the temperature is about average
for the time of year

the sun is in the cellar
it's spring in the kitchen
and love is in the air.

In the upstairs bedroom
the stars are out to play,
comets race our pulses but lose.

The clock strikes autumn
in the blue sky tower
gulls flap on the tenth floor

beneath the skein of geese,
their prow an imprint of landmarks,
smoke horizontally from the chimney

Three white horsetails in the twilight sky
resemble mentholated breaths
photographed by frosty eyes.

But the sun's ten minutes
fast in going down
the wind is up, fast blowing

curtains tight, forcing light
inwards and onto
the burrow of wintered sleepers.

A store of nuts
and an ice cream cone,
pots of soup and paddling pools

and an ant in the attic
with an atom of gold
it cannot spend,

others with tiny weathers
balanced like feathers
on the red and dripping nose of the air.


Postscript

From the bedroom
the fog is clearing,
we fall asleep on the hay
made when the sun
and our eyes were shining