The House She Understands

The house was blue crayon on white paper,

drawn in the waiting room while mothers

read magazines about things

that don't matter when you're six.

She explained it to her mother:

this is where people sleep.

This is where the dog goes.

This is the door. This is not

where anyone comes in from outside.

The windows were all the same size,

which meant she didn't know yet

that windows could be different.

The roof was something between

a person's profile and a bird,

like she'd seen both and couldn't

decide which one a roof should be.

What was missing: the yard.

The mailbox. The way other children

drew houses with garages

and driveways that led somewhere.

Her house had no entry.

Just walls and a door that didn't

open to the world.

She drew the dog as a shape.

Not a dog, exactly. Just something

she called a dog. Her mother

didn't correct her.

The specific wrongness of it

stayed with me. Not the mistakes,

but the logic. The choices she made

about what mattered. Where people

belonged in her understanding

of a house. The door off-center,

like she knew that doors

never quite fit

into what we expect.

I watched her draw the sun

in the corner. Large and irrelevant.

Exactly where it wouldn't

shine on anything.