Gazing upon every house I have seen

be it mine, another’s, a fiction, 

the iconic street upon which

an abode is placed is in itself

an icon.

 

Some houses lie on streets

silent and tranquil, 

the nights full with the song of

chirping birds and evening frogs.

The pleasant eddies of wind

curl through the leaves and branches

to rest. 

The road back is one surrounded by 

dim lights

dully glimmering from too-tall streetlights

and swaths of concrete 

With small tufts of grass planted

in false roots of asphalt. 

There’s a wild field 

sloping downward

off to the right 

grass, maybe snakes

open blackness and fences in the night.

The hill’s are on

the left, the trees’ cover,

and cicadas are the drone 

that hums in the ears. 

 

Others lie upon the

bustling streets of convenience stores

nonsensically, restaurants next to each other

as though playfully shoving

each others in the shoulder.

Buses, cars, roaring defiance in

the early sleeping hours,

in the face of 

many a startled awakening. 

The road back is one colored with

unreadably enthusiastic advertisements,

twinkling, flashing strobe, 

and clean slabs of stone underfoot.

 

And now fondly I look upon the very same houses

and remember not within themselves or their events

but walking along the roads back on a day 

where it seemed all other of the roads had been closed.