back house
by john brantingham
2016 and annie and i moved into a house behind a giant claremont mansion that must have been the servant’s quarters back when claremont had things like servant’s quarters and it was far enough back that the sounds of the neighbor’s chickens mostly drown out the sounds of the road and at dawn we’d often rise to walk down and see turrell’s sculpture made out of light greeting the day down at the college and it was a good time for us to be alive despite trump because we could walk down to the village and hear the music of conversation and the place was so small i taught myself the trick of writing in bed and heading up to johnson’s pasture to hike out to the eucalyptus that susserated in the breeze and the grasses that were not high enough to form wind wolves but almost and at night i’d come home to find coyotes trotting down the middle of the road and i named them all peter allen wentworth and i don’t know why except that seemed right and the only reason we ever left that tiny piece of heaven was that they didn’t allow dogs and we’ve never been able to live long without dogs and why would you ever want to
