The House

I arrived with a case

that held what could be carried.

The road ended in gravel and a gate.

Beyond it, the house—

boards gone soft,

nothing that suggested rescue.

Inside, it was cooler.

Clean. Ordered.

The chapel kept its light on.

You learned the day by bell—

stand, kneel, stand again.

Words spoken, returned.

Old words.

They worked for a while.

We slept in rows.

Breathing lined up in the dark.

At meals, no talking.

A voice reading from somewhere above us

while spoons went on.

It gave shape to things.

That was its use.

For a time I thought

shape might be enough.

Some of them were kind.

A hand on the shoulder,

bread pushed nearer.

The sort of gestures

that suggest you might remain.

But no one knew me.

Not really.

The place kept order.

It didn’t make anything closer.

Work filled what prayer didn’t.

Wood, ash, the garden.

The body settled into it.

You could pass a day that way

without thinking too much.

Then it shifted.

Nothing you could point to.

Just a look that stayed too long.

A voice that didn’t belong

to the rest of it.

We walked out past the edge

one evening.

No name for it.

No need.

After that, the words didn’t hold.

You said them,

they went nowhere.

The light in the chapel

seemed thinner.

They called me in early.

A table.

Two men who wouldn’t look.

It was explained, briefly.

I signed something

that used my name.

By noon I was outside again.

The train took over.

Fields moving past

without comment.

Nothing was explained.

That was the clearest part.

Years later we met by accident.

Spoke about work,

where we were living.

Left the rest alone.

One stayed.

Wrote once.

Careful handwriting.

I read it,

put it with other things.

Now when I think of that place

it comes back in pieces—

the bell,

the beds,

the garden in rain,

that walk at dusk,

the gate.

It all remains.

What it was meant to do

doesn’t.