Dear modest four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath

home with bay windows and a covered garage
almost identical to each of the houses down

the way and circling that cul-de-sac: how
many times have I driven past without knowing
that one day soon I’d be looking more closely,

more covetously (how is it possible) at you?
Last week, our neighbor the realtor unlocked
the front door to let us in. We stepped through

the foyer, heels sounding on hardwood floors;
then climbed the carpet-covered stairs to peer
at bedrooms, gaze up a skylight, click open

and shut the wooden blinds. Stripped of
furniture, adornments, pictures, vestiges
of clothing and former lives— and yet

it simmered with history. Should I not
have entertained the possibility; not dreamed
of how to lighten dark stains beneath the old

refrigerator, imagined all sorts of yeasty
smells glazing the kitchen walls done up in maize?
There was a mantel wide enough for our clock

that runs just a few minutes fast; and a side
door opening out onto the yard where a firefly
sailed past, inner wings glowing in the sun.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.