Housewarming – Tom Sastry

Housewarming

Come to my house. It is empty –
a prison for sounds.

You can mark it with your footsteps,
you can echo in its corners,

there will be time, later, for words.
Before the furniture comes

we can eat pizza from the box
and test out the airbed.

Together, we’ll make a ghost.
Come in person

or in an envelope.
The rules for shoes are as you please

and coats go anywhere
but not yet. Come through here,

share with me this little square of sun,
say how it will be perfect

when I have done
this or that thing which I never will do.

Walk down the hill. Buy macaroons
and a four pint carry-out,

watch clips on my phone.
Just come. Come to my house.

It demands, selfishly,
to be filled

ashamed of its scuffed bones
ashamed of its honest age.

Do not wait. Come while you can.
This house is so beautiful naked

I cannot bear it for long.
Come to my house. It is empty.

 

Tom Sastry’s debut pamphlet Complicity was published by smith/doorstop in October 2016. It was one of the Poetry School’s Books of the Year for 2016 and is the Poetry Book Society’s pamphlet choice for Spring 2017.