Moving The House

By Ingrid Wendt

What we hadn’t intended to do

Looking through want ads, instead
of a high chair

House: To be moved or torn down.
Best offer.

The only
offer: ours.

Two months preparing, tearing
off a roof we said would be
back up in a month, the siding
back on before winter,

foundation
shrubs struggled
out of their beds, dug into
an empty lot.

Three years we
didn’t know we were signing

our hands away
into hammering, clutter, dust,

our need for shelter
we couldn’t escape from by running away
or back home.

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