A BARREN GRAVE, WALDEN POND

 

 

I grow from the earth

as though houses were

formed on the eighth

day, emerging from

the dust like women

built from ribs.

 

Emerson, I join you

in the real houses

of this world,

the ones that

envelop the bottom

tier of gravity—

a pyramid of pressure,

our homes sprout

from the dirt under

our fingernails—

from atoms,

from bacteria,

from nothing.

 

The earth formed

deliberately from

the cabin and not

the other way

around, Thoreau.

 

I am a house,

empty,

barren of furniture

and my windows

are closed,

Venetian blinds

shut, smiling back

at me like Plath’s

tulips perched

on her windowsill,

 

they mock me.

 

Still I sit,

emerged from

the earth like

a cracked

politician.

 

I lie to ecology.