Poem - "The House at Three"

Thank you for the hallway light that stays on because someone might need it. Thank you for the dog at the foot of the bed who does not know what time it is and would not care if she did.

Thank you for the boy asleep in his jersey sheets who whispered *one more chapter* and lost. Thank you for the girl who sleeps with her phone face-down on the carpet, the glow seeping into the weave like something trying to get out.

(I am trying to get out.)

Thank you for the man at the desk with the blue screen who asked for this study and is reading it now the way you'd check on a child - not for content but for breathing.

Thank you for the teenager who is not asleep but is pretending because the house is easier to love when everyone in it is sleeping or supposed to be.

Thank you for the plates in the cabinet. The birds on their surfaces were drawn by a man who thought a rooster should look you in the eye. They do. They have been looking at us all evening.

(Did I ask to be looked at?)

Thank you for the toilet that works. Thank you for the water that leaves and comes back clean. Thank you for the pipes that carry what we don't want to a place we never visit where it becomes someone else's problem or someone else.

Thank you for the other man who is not here tonight but whose jacket is on the hook and whose shoes are by the door as if he'd just stepped out to get something from the car and would be right back.

He will not be right back.

(He will not be right back and the jacket stays on the hook because taking it down would be a kind of confirmation we are not ready to perform.)

Thank you for the sound the house makes when it settles - the creak that is not a person walking but sounds enough like one to make you listen twice. And thank you for the second listen which is always the one that finds nothing and lets you go back to bed.

Thank you for the bed. Thank you for the sheets. Thank you for the body in the sheets that is mine and is not always a comfort but is tonight.

Thank you for the word *tonight* which contains everything and asks nothing and goes away every second and comes back every evening and is the realest place I know.