Night Before Moving Out
by Sonja Johanson
You still feel like my house.
Empty as things are between us,
every sound careening
off your bare walls, dusty
as the floors are underfoot,
you still feel like a room
a person is about to come into.
Through the door I expect
to see you as you were
when we first met —
having just belonged
to someone else, another
person’s scent in your closets
another taste reflected
in your fabrics, the patterns
worn across your halls.
I expect to see you as you were
yesterday, after we’d had years
to lay our marks on one another —
the way I would pace you without
looking, the way you made me feel
safe and lonely at the same time,
how you gave up the wallpaper
for me, how I knew when you
were sick and made it better.
There are no boxes remaining
in the attic, no dishes clatter
on the counter. We’ve done
with the raising of children, done
with the procession of cats
and hamsters and lizards.
We know each other in the way
that needs no speaking, allows
no surprises. I know your creaks
and groans, you know the way
my breath catches in my cheek
when I’m dreaming. Tomorrow
I will take the house plants; you
will keep the garden. I will pack
my bags and drive away; you will
watch me out the windows as I go.
PAINTING: “Cape Cod Morning” by Edward Hopper (1950).
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Walking through the empty rooms of my house, I realized that we had developed a relationship with each other, and that each place you live becomes a character in your own personal narrative.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sonja Johanson has work appearing in or forthcoming at BOAAT, Outlook Springs, and The Writer’s Almanac. She is a contributing editor at the Found Poetry Review, and the author of Impossible Dovetail (IDES, Silver Birch Press, 2015), all those ragged scars (Choose the Sword Press), and Trees in Our Dooryards (Redbird Chapbooks). Sonja divides her time between work in Massachusetts and her home in the mountains of western Maine.
Beautiful!
I love this. Beautiful work.
I like this very much, each line flowed and was representative of the love affair many people have with their homes…
poignant – as we’re packing up to leave this week…
I’m in this process now. Yesterday my husband said “I didn’t think it would be this hard.” But it is, it is. It’s a loss, and you capture that so well.
The flow, the images, the voice….acceptance of process, ties untied. Brava, Sonja. I love this!!!
I really like this poem. I hope you don’t mind, Sonja, that I’ve posted it on my FB author page!
A beautiful, amazing poem that has such heart. I must share this as well. Congratulations, Sonja!
A truly moving heartfelt writing. Congratulations! The world can relate and feel no longer alone with the experiences of life that embody all. Thank you for sharing this!
[…] her home in the mountains of western Maine. Editor’s note: Sonja Johanson’s poem “Night Before Moving Out” appeared on our blog in August as part of our “When I Moved” Poetry & Prose Series […]