WINDOW UP HERE
I opened the window up here today, the one at the foot of our bed. The one she sleeps near must stay closed, without a screen to keep her from falling.
These windows have opinions. Some of them don’t care whether they ever slide up or fall down, lazy, needing a stout stick in the frame to let the air in. Some of them care very much, and stay shut. A hundred years of rain and paint makes them impossible to persuade otherwise.
I want to open them all, reach a long arm inside, between panes, to clean the cobwebs away. Wind blows in the dust, pushes in the leaves that might turn to good seed-sprouting compost in another year.
And these gutters grow the prettiest maple sprouts every spring, babies forever, never much past August’s drought.
What a house we live in, settling deeper into itself since we left it standing still but not, still easing and leaning where it wants.