Language Is a House

Language is a house 
we live in, and grammar, 
the housekeeper 
who posts the rules
on the door 
to each room we enter: 

This is how we say things here.

The housekeeper insists 
on proper sentences, 
but love speaks in fragments 
and unfinished lines.

Some rooms are locked 
for being too unruly, 
their language deemed 
improper.

And though the housekeeper 
sweeps the same dust daily,
the walls keep forgetting 
their shape.
                
The windows of the house 
look out on what we call trees
because that is what we have 
agreed to call them 
instead of spiders or dogs. 

Trees don’t mind at all, 
but they, themselves 
never use the word, 
even though an oak 
can tell itself apart
from a pine.

The windows also look out 
on what we call the horizon
toward which everything 
appears to sink 
as if it were a hole, 
but it’s not.

When we step outside the house 
we must carry the window with us, 
else we are apt to stumble 
over a dog or be bitten by the spider 
or fall into a hole in the horizon.

If such as that were to occur, 
eviction might be considered;
at the very least,
the housekeeper would make 
an entry in her ledger.

She would not be amused.