THE HOUSE BROODS OVER US

By Bruce Boston

i.

It was always the house with its crumbling eaves
and weathered gables, its turrets and cupolas,
its ornate fretwork and blank window eyes. It was
the house with its sagging porticos and scattered
trellises, the dark green vines trailing up the walls
until their leaves turned sere and pale in the sun's
heat.

It was always the house with its trenched history
and ineradicable stains on the hardwood floors,
vivid as birthmarks or faded as old scars.

ii.

I gathered the tools of the draftsman's trade
with a serious intent, to learn the craft of the
cartographer, to create a detailed map with a
detailed legend, extensive and accurate, that
would not only chart the limits of the house
but give specific definition to its varied
elaborations.

I set out to explore its multiple levels and
seductive recesses, the shadow and substance
of its rectilinear maze.

And you came with me in your wayward fashion,
less than innocent and far from knowing, to
share my explorations and test the dimensions
of the world waiting beyond each wall.

iii.

We discovered hallways that led to nothing
and others that turned back upon themselves.
We entered rooms that were ordered and others
in rank disarray.

You sat at a slender desk in a high drawing room
that bathed your flesh in films of light. I paced
beyond the carpet, dictating imaginary letters
to composers and poets and heads of state.

We slept in a Victorian boudoir rich in its
mock oriental decadence, the portraits of dead
sinners gracing our walls.

When I cut my hand on a splintered balustrade,
your lips closed on the single drop of blood
that welled in the lines of my palm.

iv.

When you turned back, gathering up the ball
of yarn you had cleverly unwound to mark our
distracted passage, I ventured farther to
uncover corridors and cul-de-sacs that recalled
ones we had visited together, standing rooms and
sitting rooms and those stripped bare of all
decor.

Was it days or only hours that I wandered
before you found me crouched against a wall,
unable to speak beyond a thirst that filled
my body to its pores?

v.

We have settled in the rooms we inhabit and
we do not stray past their boundaries. We stay
close by our hearth and our fire beneath a
mantel lined with framed images of these same
rooms.

Beyond us we can feel the house brooding through
days of neglect, the accumulated dust sifting
into its bones, the sun shadows and moon shadows
crawling across deserted floors, the shame in
its solitude as it waits for a step to cut the
silence.

---

Copyright © 2003 Bruce Boston

 Bruce Boston is the author of more than thirty books and chapbooks, including the novel Stained Glass Rain and
 the best-of fiction collection Masque of Dreams.  His stories and poems have appeared in hundreds of publications,
 including Asimov's SF Magazine, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, the Nebula Awards Showcase, and the
 Pushcart Prize Anthology.  He lives in Florida with his wife, writer-artist Marge Simon.  For more information
 check here.