Poem by Lawrence Kessenich

Illustration by James Conant



Possession

A small clapboard house in Cambridge displays a
realtor’s signpost, and atop the arm, where it normally
says, “For Sale,” it says, “Immediate Possession.”

I picture its new owners
calmly stepping through the
small front door into a
swirl of golden sawdust
spinning merrily off
the soft pine floor

see stair treads rising and
falling like piano keys
hear shutters flapping like
wings against the house sides
smell the ozone sweetness of
ancestral presences

The owners, bathed in gold dust
are as pleased as squirrels
in a pecan tree. He twirls
her ‘round the living room, the
room is alive, the room is
possessed. They have taken
immediate possession.

They will grow a wildflower
garden of heirs, who will love
this house as fiercely as this
house loves them, as fiercely
as the shiny ravens
squawking on the rooftop.

Generations will kick up
its dust, generations
will sweep its dust away
and still the house will live—
small, humble, self-possessed
possessing all who possess it.