The Little House of Our Desire

That House!
---- Big Frank Dickinson

"Everything was spotless in the little house of our desire,
the clock ticked on and on, happy about
being apprenticed to eternity."
-- John Ashbery

That house was such a small one (in retrospect).
Of course at the time it wasn't; it was (then)
Like the cavernous halls of childhood, which
When revisited later shrinks as
Perceived
That house magnified touch and time,
Rebounding and reverberating
Eternity and infinity dancing till dawn
To the tune of balanced breath, or so it
Seemed
That house was stillness inside a pause within
Which time looped but could not escape,
Like a ship in a bottle forever sailing but
Never touched by the outside elements - they
Thought
That house had rooms inside rooms mirroring rooms
Leading into passages that revealed
New halls where they dallied and strolled
In timeless amplitude of exploration, or so they
Felt
That house, was entered by them, like a distant relative
Who mistaking loneliness for awhile,
Came into the little house, but leary of
The dance of intimacies and spots that tire
Fled.