Jacked up on cribbing, a house
on the lake looks so vulnerable
I’d like to topple it splashing
roof-down into the water.
What does the Indian name
of this grave lake mean? A friend
translates it, “So’s Your Mother,”
so maybe So’s Your Mother
undermined this structure and forced
the owners to rebuild it
with a poured concrete foundation.
What if we squatted up there
a couple of stories above
the workday autumn fleecing
ordinary people with taxes
and insurance and huge bills
for pumping out their septic tanks?
What if workers back on the job
found the house inhabited
by people who otherwise never
could afford to live by a lake?
Sunday’s a good day to squat.
Christian benevolence overflows,
so trespassers rarely get shot.
The mud-bottom smell comforts
with sighs and bubbles of gas
from leaf decay brown as the shoes
I wore to our wedding. Tonight,
while rain occlude the moonlight
and sizzles in the bluestone pit
where the new foundation will go,
we could listen in stilted dark,
perched like two pagan deities
far enough above the loneliness
to seduce it without thinking.
