The Well.

The Well

   We looked at a cottage ideally situated among pine trees
   and hills facing a lake that dodged in and out of the
   green spread shining like shards of glass on the city
   streets we hoped to leave behind and the house, perfect,
   hand hewn timbers field stone foundation river rock
   fireplace smells of summer meals tacky backs of sweat
   stained cards dealt out under a kerosene lamp that
   moths bruise themselves against the same moths that
   brush your cheek as your head bends over your hand but
   the owners had lost it to the bank so filled the well with
   stones when they had left if they couldn't have it no one
   will the cost to dig a new well would be too much for us.

   How we violate the things we love to keep them our own
   even when they have been taken fairly I wonder what
   rocks I have dropped into your well so that no one will
   ever drink of your depths but me.

Halli Villegas, a native Detroiter, has been living in Toronto for more than ten years. She has published two books of poetry, Red Promises (Guernica Editions, 2001) and In the Silence Absence Makes (Guernica Editions, 2004). Her chapbook, The Human Cannonball, appeared with Believe Your Own Press. She contributed the piece "Bond, Jane Bond" to the anthology Girls Who Bite Back (Sumach Press, 2004), edited by Emily Pohl-Weary. Villegas is the editor and publisher of Tightrope Books.