Fran Davis

Indwelling

This house and I
have grown together
the long familiarity of stasis
blood and bone
wood and plaster

Each room known by feel
the dark bedroom
wall cool as my skin
a stained glass round of flowers
made by a friend, now gone
friends leave us
still the walls remain
and the bedstead of ten thousand
nights, sleepless or deeply lost

At the window
I stand in luna grayness
looking up
at spotlight moon
from the place
where I am thumbtacked
to earth by gravity and custom
the house holds
a second shell grown inside
cohabitants
as wheat in chaff or stone in fruit

 
 

Fran Davis is a poet and essayist, whose works have appeared in New Verse News, Calyx, The Chattahooche Review, Vincent Brothers Review, Passager, Reed Magazine and several anthologies. She is a winner of the Lamar York prize for nonfiction and a Pushcart prize nominee.