Things the House Says

THINGS THE HOUSE SAYS The stair, fourth from the bottom, has a word it only says when stepped on softly. Step hard and it says nothing — it saves the word for the careful, for the ones trying not to wake anyone. That is the cruelty of old houses. They betray exactly the people who are trying to be kind. PIPES Somewhere behind the wall the water is telling a long story about pressure, about being asked to go up when everything in it wants to go down. I listen the way you listen to a neighbour you have never met arguing in a language you almost know. THE DOOR THAT DOESN'T LATCH It drifts. All night it drifts, an inch, then back, then an inch, as if the room were breathing, as if the house had finally decided to be honest with me about being alive, about not being able to hold still just because I asked. I could fix it. There is a screw, a Saturday, a version of me who owns the right size of patience. For now I let it breathe. For now I am grateful for anything that moves without my asking, that proves the dark is not as finished as it looks. SETTLING They say a house settles. They say it the way they say a person settles — as if it were a calming down, a coming to terms, and not the slow, structural sound of something heavy learning to live with the ground.