Self Portrait as a House

by Christine Hamm

I could be a tin-roofed house
made of cardboard or gingerbread
in Mexico City:
mud and shit floor,
yellow dogs running in and out,
sometimes tugging on the baby's ear.

Maybe I'm a house
only open to the public
ten days a year, hallways saved
by parens of gold velvet cord,
doorways lined with plastic tongues,
and maybe I'm filled with the curlicued
objects of the dead
who had several silk hats,
some with blue feathers.

I could be an apartment building:
leaking the music of pipes,
smoke detectors and screams or barks.
Maybe I'm full of people
with hair that won't behave
and maybe they're crying,
but maybe,
a few

are

singing.