MOVING HOUSE

"Shhhhhhh!"
Uncle shushed me
"See that there now!"

I looked at
the house and the house
looked back at me

"That wee house wasn't
there yesterday!"
Uncle whispered

"Really?" said I
"Really!" he said
I stared at it

"No! Don't look
at it or
it might...!"

"Uncle never
finished what
"...it might. .  !"

the house it seemed
terrified of being caught
crept back into its shadows

it crouched
by the side of the road
as if at any moment

it would up sticks
and do a runner
at great speed

we walked on
warily by
careful not to scare it

"Let sleeping houses
lie!"
Uncle warned me

I not being
used to countryside
I was blinded with green

so that when
Uncle brought me
a different way

I was
none
the wiser

"See what did
I tell ya!"
the house had gone

"That wee house
likes to
roam about!"

and then the next day
and "Jaysus!"
wasn't the house back

Uncle kept this up
for a week or more
bamboozling my mind

and for all
the summers of me
being 3 and 4

I heartily believed
in the moving house
and its comings and goings

Uncle smiling
at my innocent
belief in him

*

Auntie Nellie used to always give out to Mikey and with always the same words"For God's sake Mikey will ya stop filling the child's head with nonsense....can't ya see that he believes everything you say!" Mikey would always smile and say his catchphrase: "Be the Hokey!" It was his stories such as this made up on the spot that seeped into my imagination and I soaked up my Uncle's storytelling through emotional osmosis. He made me the poet I am today.