Moving houses was no small hill
to climb: the ground a bog, the sky
alternating between soaked towel and  

white flag of chagrin, sad to have
muddied our boots. The hydrangeas  

wanted a trestle; the mailbox wanted
a can of paint – orange, we said,
maybe, like the dawn we could see
and the nightfall we couldn’t, the end
of days hiding behind the firs and

the bulk of the neighbor’s house.
Every dusk its shadows lurked more
craftily until I couldn’t stand them,

wanted so much to watch the sun
melt and its guts seep slowly out

above the back yard that next to a
cup of tea, book slipping insistently
from my lap, I dozed and dreamt of

taking a sledgehammer to the new
wall, battering through prints and

plaster to a channel of almost night,
one more outline pressing dim and
plain against the fenced-in trees.