In the office of a bank
Sat a woman with no name
She said, “I want to build a house,”
And she was proud and unashamed
So the bank found her a place
In the middle of a space
At the bottom of a hill
Where the roads interlaced
And the big men came
And they hammered and they banged
Til the sun went down-
They were there all day.
Then the sun came up
Shedding light on the frame of
What would soon be the house
Of the woman with no name
Every day she’d sit under
A tree down by the bend
And she’d watch them hammer
From the start to the end
And when the sun went away
They’d all go, but she’d stay
Overnight with her dreams
Til they came the next day
Floor by floor, they built it high
With marble stairs like in Dubai
And balconies as big as cities
And giant windows to the sky
This went on from March to June
Then when, finally, they were through
They all loaded up their hammers
And the woman paid her dues
In the several weeks to come,
I expected there’d be some
Sort of grandiose to-do
At the house, but there was none
There were no big trucks with
Fancy tables or Persian rugs,
No big shelves filled with books,
Or white China coffee mugs
No ceremonial moving-in,
No big, burly moving men
Just the woman and the house
That she’d dreamt of living in
So I watched from time to time
Throughout the years, and she seemed fine
Although the sorrow and the lines
On her face grew quite defined
Still, she always sat and stared
From her weary, beat-up chair
At the people passing by
Who had no minutes to spare
Then one summer afternoon
Halfway through the month of June, I
Came across the nameless woman
Crying, lonely, on the dunes
So I timidly sat down
Next to her, looked around,
And proceeded, then, to ask
What sort of trouble she had found
Well, that day, we talked for hours
About this, and about that, and
We uprooted all the flowers
From that troubled woman’s past
I learned which lines never to cross,
What kind of soil would nurture moss, and
That day, that woman taught me
What it means to suffer loss
Then I asked her of the house, and
What it truly was about
Was she holding something in
Or was she keeping someone out?
She said she hadn’t always known
What it meant to be alone
That life was cruel and unforgiving
And had stripped her flesh from bone
So she had built herself a place
To hide, protected, from the pace
Of a life that takes relentlessly-
One she’d grown too tired to face
But she knew that she’d been wrong
She’d been foolish all along
That this house could not replace
All of her treasures that were gone
I, for a moment, took her hand
Then left her there upon the sand, and
Walked the road back to the house
I once had thought was something grand
The balconies seemed rather small,
The giant windows not as tall and,
Perhaps, the highest story
Wasn’t so high after all
I hoped she’d find a cure,
Something innocent and pure,
Something more than this old house
And its unimmaculate grandeur
The woman died later that year
And she was buried far from here
And now the house is on the market
Pending sale to an engineer
He’ll move in his Persian rugs,
Shelves of books, and coffee mugs,
And he’ll settle into bed alone
And curl up, warm and snug
But whoever comes and goes,
The house and I will always know
That it was built as a diversion
From the fear of letting go
I recount all this to say
I hope there never comes a day
When you’ve forgotten what you wanted
And you’ve wished your life away
Don Pepperoni Community Member 
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