Poem in Memory of a House

by Tung-Hui Hu

Homes were going up all over the hillside.
You'd turn your back for a second
and pop! up went a new house.
Endless columns of wood like a scene
of the crucifixion. Real estate agents
armed with walkie-talkies barking at
half-finished meadows, driveways
wet and congealing. Nothing could
stop them. They had the noble
look of Xerxes lashing the sea.

 

Tung-Hui Hu’s first collection of poems, The Book of Motion, is due out this fall from the University of Georgia Press. A PhD student in the architecture program at the University of California Berkeley, he has also contributed recently to The Ontario Review. (6/2003)