Someone Else’s House 

By EMILY LEITHAUSER

When you arrive in our city,
you will see, Prophet,

body bags; shoeprints rising
from the mud, still;

shards of homes; a razed,
blackened, and burned 

dominion all around. And when 
you find the right 

news source, you will weep, or have sex, 
or forget; you will give

money and cry in earnest.
We’ve wanted to save

each other for so many years
that we’ve forgotten 

how. In the afternoon 
the cathedral was almost 

cold. But when he explained 
that he, all that time, 

had been with someone else, 
I felt no cold, 

no global catastrophes,
just me: flawed

and echoing. And when
I breathed, I saw

my mistakes, bright and clean 
as glass in the windows 

of someone else’s house.

 

 

[Purchase Issue 29 here.]

Emily Leithauser’s poetry and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Literary Matters, and Literary Imagination, among other publications. Her book is The Borrowed World. She teaches English and creative writing at Morehouse College. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Someone Else’s House 

Related Posts

beach

“During the Drought,” “Sestina, Mount Mitchill,” “Dragonflies”

LIZA KATZ DUNCAN
”The earth, as blue and green / as a child’s drawing of the earth— // is this what disaster looks like? My love, think / of the dragonflies, each migratory trip / spanning generations. Imagine // that kind of faith: to leave a place behind / knowing a part of you will find its way back, / instinct outweighing desire.

Knives, Tongues

SIMONÉ GOLDSCHMIDT-LECHNER
The paths are drawn on the ground before the borders appear. We buried water and supplies there, made this barren ground walkable, and moved from the north to the south until we reached the clashing oceans, green and blue. You think about the calloused soles of our feet, we think about our siblings:

Baileys Harbor Shoreline

On the Shores of Baileys Harbor

BEN TAMBURRI
The beaches of Baileys Harbor are for birds, too pebbly and coarse to relax on. The water is cold, and the waves break at your ankles.