A house flickers.
Like fool’s fire.
In the seaport—the earthly.
Space where vessels.
Carry vast distances.
The house—the home.
Within which longing.
Roams like smoke.
Wringing in the attic.
Bolinus brandaris.
Excretions of the heart.
Boiling deep in the cellar.
Listen to me when I say.
The house is.
A gesture of genesis.
It is navel & milk.
It is cosmic ray.
It is legions of masks.
Chitting atop the stairs of their laughter.
Their cries already.
Knit into darkness.
It is the eternal open-eyed kiss.
Watching, tasting.
Being watched, being tasted.
Within such light.
Within such crooked carpentry.
Mia X. Perez is a PhD student of Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Their work has been published or is forthcoming in The Closed Eye Open, Inverted Syntax, Raw Art Review, AGON Journal, and more.