The House by the River: Poems on Roots and Return

Every house by a river is an argument with water.

An old clapboard house stands on stilts at a bend in a slow brown river. A pantry door keeps two columns of pencil marks, one for floodwaters and one for growing children. A porch light burns every night for whoever is still out on the road. A brass key rides on a key ring for eleven years without opening a single door.

The House by the River is a collection of poems about where we come from and what it costs to leave. They move from the rooms of childhood, to the river's seasons and thefts, to the long years of distance, and finally down the gravel road home to an empty house that is supposed to be sold.

Quiet, concrete, and deeply felt, these poems are for anyone who has carried a place inside them long after leaving it. They ask what it means to come from somewhere, and whether going home is something you do once or something you keep choosing.

Roots. Leaving. Return. What the water keeps.