Little House

Our little house set the scope of our days and smoothed over the cracks between us. I loved that house like a person, and so did you. We became like it—flexible as wood, on stilts, waiting for the stream to flood. Wood walls, wood floors, wood countertops, rafters, tables and chairs made of twisted branches and shaped trunks. The midday shade from the banana trees, the breeze stirring the mosquito net, the haze it spread across everything outside of bed. Roosters beneath the floorboards at sunrise, tea before work in the morning and long naps in the hammock during the hottest hours. Hard rain on the tin roof like hundreds of thousands of toy drums rolling, and the thickness of the air that always came with that sound, making every breath like a long drink. The smell of rain and slow decay.

Now, when I think of my love for you, I think of the rain on our tin roof. I think of that smell, and of sunlight falling on our low wooden bed.