ice house

i buy an air conditioner to save you.
then another & another. i am prone 
to buying ice houses like you. i cannot help it.
i meet a bird who tells me, "i have a place
for you to dream." then i am following them.
the ice house is always bigger than 
i should be able to afford. i make concessions.
i can live with the chill & the weeping. i can
make peace with always having a cold shower.
your chandelier falls. i turn the air conditioner
to as cold as it will go. wrap myself 
like a stuffed grape leaf. olive oil on my lips.
you are coming apart. i am drinking the stairs.
the attic full of all the dead people. 
my bones, made of ice too. i grab cups 
& vases to fill with your windows. i beg you,
"try to hold on just a little longer." it is summer
& i am afraid to sleep bare toward 
the wild night sky. i knew this when i entered you.
that there would come a day that the roof started 
to bleed & i had to sit in a field of buckets.
i stop strangers on the street. i tell them,
"there used to be a house there." all they see
is a lake. my clothes float on your surface.
i pluck them out like a body fisherman. 
the rain comes & i cannot tell what is house
& what is home & where you went. 
to sleep somewhere is to let it claim part of you.
i hope wherever you have gone that 
your walls are wide. that the fish learn 
to sing just like i used to in the bath. 
i knock on doors. their houses blow away.
i turn all the air conditioners on just to feel again
what it was like to sleep stone-like inside.