Why Grandma Mozelle took me trespassing
through half-built houses, I can’t be sure.
As if “because we can” was reason enough,
she often said nobody thinks of women and children
as thieves or vandals.
I caught her sometimes sliding a hand over a countertop,
pretending, perhaps, to wipe away crumbs.
Maybe she just wanted to read me
the house frames: the studs of entry and barrier.
Among their barred shadows, she asked
if I could picture a window seat instead of that extra closet
or this dining room open to kitchen and den.
I kept busy shuffling sawdust searching for the metal discs
that electricians punch from power boxes.
I didn’t grasp the value then of recognizing walls,
looking through them, seeing other ways that they could lay.
To me, the prize was naming and numbering,
first, those coin-sized blanks,
then later, homes I wished to claim.
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