I looked through the window and I saw
a sunny day. I say sunny day,
but the thing about sun is how
it casts shadows. It draws the shape
of the house across the patio, and what this shape is
is a ghost house, here, creeping its way
across these slabs, as the day lengthens, it’s a house
completely in darkness, a house without words
or windows, a house reduced to the shape
of itself. And in this house
and under this roof, drawn there
on the patio, live and breathe
these ghost selves, these versions
of us, feeling their way through darkened rooms,
gripping their stubby candles
out in front of themselves. How
do they do it, how do they just keep on,
all the time thumping into furniture, swearing, wishing
they were us? Do they even know
we exist? Would they reach for us
if they could? Look, now, how this shadow
of a house which the bank says is working its way
towards being ours, is forming itself, as the light
changes, there on the patio, into a shape
we might squint at, and almost think
is a hand, or into a shape we might
squint at, and almost think is a fist.
