Everything you’ve ever imagined
is bubble-wrapped and taped,
packed in the boxes you’re always unloading,
carrying up the steps of your new place,
in the ethereal anywhere of wherever you are.
You built your house: Arranged the planks and years,
felt the cool shadows of rising rafters, the settled roof.
Your next-door neighbors welcome you with warnings:
Don’t chase shadows over vacant lawns.
Don’t you dawdle in the far-fetched pond.
You are somewhere between your unreachable childhood
home and the impossible house of dreams.
The house offers no direction. Neither does this
very moment, radiating in each thinkable edge.
Elspeth Jensen earned her BA in Creative Writing from Western Washington University, and her MFA from George Mason University. Her writing can be found or is forthcoming in journals such as The Bellevue Literary Review, Rabbit Catastrophe, The Midway Review, and elsewhere. She is the Poetry Editor for Sweet Tree Review. She also loves dogs and tiny things.