What My House Would Be Like If It Were A Person
This person would be an animal.
This animal would be large, at least as large
as a workhorse. It would chew cud, like cows,
having several stomachs.
No one could follow it
into the dense brush to witness
its mating habits. Hidden by fur,
its sex would be hard to determine.
Definitely it would discourage
investigation. But it would be, if not teased,
a kind, amiable animal,
confiding as a chickadee. Its intelligence
would be of a high order,
neither human nor animal, elvish.
And it would purr, though of course,
it being a house, you would sit in its lap,
not it in yours.
Copyright Credit: Denise Levertov, “What My House Would Be Like If It Were A Person” from Poems 1972-1982. Copyright © 1978 by Denise Levertov. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: Poems 1972-1982 (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2002)