Now you hear what the house has to say. <br />Pipes clanking, water running in the dark, <br />the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort, <br />and voices mounting in an endless drone <br />of small complaints like the sounds of a family <br />that year by year you've learned how to ignore. <br /> <br />But now you must listen to the things you own, <br />all that you've worked for these past years, <br />the murmur of property, of things in disrepair, <br />the moving parts about to come undone, <br />and twisting in the sheets remember all <br />the faces you could not bring yourself to love. <br /> <br />How many voices have escaped you until now, <br />the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot, <br />the steady accusations of the clock <br />numbering the minutes no one will mark. <br />The terrible clarity this moment brings, <br />the useless insight, the unbroken dark.<br /><br />Dana Gioia<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/insomnia-3/
