it’s the thing I want second most
the house next to the empty lot
the driftwood shelter on the world’s last undeveloped beach
an efficiency apartment on the international space station

something very small, within

the words between ampersands
the friction between grains of sand
the time between maps

in the world outside metaphor
the one in which we think we mostly live
next to nothing you’ll find that modest home
fenced yard, good light all day
east in the morning and west at suppertime

the place badly needs updating
that will take the rest of your life
just to think through.

I want only four things and three of them are seasons
the last is light and darkness
it sounds extravagant at first

Richard Terrill, a former student and instructor at UWEC, is the author of two collections of poems, Almost Dark and Coming Late to Rachmaninoff, winner of the Minnesota Book Award; as well as two books of creative nonfiction, Fakebook: Improvisations on a Journey Back to Jazz and Saturday Night in Baoding: A China Memoir, winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for nonfiction.