And today she promises
she will go there and buy the house back,
the one I sold when she was small
and live in it forever
because the bloom of light
from the street lamp
outside the bedroom window
spun the curtains into gold
and in the deepest hour
the trains rumbled past
making the windows sing a little tune
and the floorboards hummed
as if dreams tunneled under;

And we were safe there together
she in her little bed beside my big one
where we reached our hands out
and held on tight until morning
painted the walls so delicious a yellow
you wanted to lick them
and she swears she loved
the smell of moss that made a tiny carpet
just outside the back door
where the wind chimes argued day and night
and the spruce trees whispered
the kind of secrets
that made a little river inside her heart—
the same river I kissed a boy in
when I was her age
And let him kiss me back.