House by Lindsey Webb
Runner-up in the 2019 Ghost Proposal Chapbook Contest. Edition of 100. Printed + assembled by Cold Cube Press in Seattle, WA. Cover design by Sam Moss. $10. Sold out.
Excerpt
When I first considered my career in time, the house installedits kin. Busy setting up for the party, though I thought they
weren’t organs. I thought I had a purse. In your photograph,
a white door dries in the morning sun, though in my memory
it was red. It bursts into hives when I talk about it, and
telescopes my relation to the true.
When first asked to plan it, excavate the foundation lay the
cornerstone, bury the foundation during the war, re-excavate
it years later, re-dedicate it, then erect, enamel, decorate, and
carpet the house? As becoming interrupted is a blessing. They
say in the end, even if you were to remain in the same position,
it would be with more love.
A shame the house lies within the framework of the real. Though
connaissance remains the irritant of savoir. And I still hesitate at
the threshold of daughterhood. When violence comes to the
house, it will appear as a woman waiting her knowing out. As
wallpaper at the foot of the banister. As a pause — a nail — a lily
smell on paper. Space heals nothing yet, and only in red strips.