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 installed
its 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.

About the Author

Lindsey Webb is the author of the chapbook House (Ghost Proposal, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Chicago Review, jubilat, and Vestiges, among others. She lives in Salt Lake City, where she is a PhD student in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah.