i spent a few minutes trying to see if there was a hidden stash of candy

it can be
difficult
to sit like
mountain.

a spine
might want to
slump
like hillside.

it can be
untenable
to remain
upright
like tree,
rigid
yet flexible,
pushing
ever upward
towards sky.

there’s no error
in splaying
like seashore,
in dimpling
like tide pool.

round rocks
are made
round
through their softness.

round rocks
are made
skippable
by compromise
of water,
rigid
and flexible,
all at once.

today,
in a pervasive
rain,
inside a house
i lived in
twenty one years
ago,
the roof
inexplicably
does not leak.

the floors
are soft,
but they do not
buckle.

the house itself
leans
in the far corner,
leans down
the small hillside.

walking into that
far room,
the pull of
the hill
is palpable,
the pull of
the past,
no different.

the trees that
hold up
the hillside,
they are
the same trees
from those
twenty one years
back.

a little
taller,
their bark,
a bit
thicker.

the hillside they
hold up,
it pulls at
the house.
the house
still holds on.
the trees,
like memory,
still holding.