but the housewe make up
in another language, in another country,
where we believe in different gods

and die quite differently.
Or simply a house in a foreign street
we like the look of, where the bakery smells

hang for longer – or so it seems –
in the morning air. Or maybe the house
where love is easy, that balance of intimacy

and space just so, and the peacock blue,
viridian green and egg-yolk yellow
are more vivid than before – like the world

glimpsed through coloured glass,
and our domestic objects with their own joint history
make a trail from room to room.

Or it’s that house where we work
with depth and efficacy,
each hour so clear like a transparent cube

placed one on another, and our mind’s eye there
is bright as a magnifying glass.
Or even the house we build, like this:

cantilevered in air, fixed solid in the London clay,
so we stand in this architrave and know
what we are made of and almost who we are.