Classified

Wanted—  shell the mollusk exudes like sweat,
beehive, cool wet spaces of the dam. No more

beige paint, wallpaper piled on wallpaper.
Zero bedrooms. Zero baths. No breakfast nook

or vestibule. Think glove, not box. Vase,
not tank. Anthill chambered as a heart, veined

as our interiors. Wanted—  walls that yield to touch,
hold our prints. Think womb, think flashlight

burning in a makeshift tent of quilts, house
that fits like skin, house that fits like shadow.

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Thanks to The Cincinnati Review, where this poem first appeared.