Windows are lungs

In the middle of the night my house speaks to me
A series of creaks and cracks
A language I never learned

Old construction
a slow revealer of secrets
A burlesque artist always on the tease
Skeleton keys to lost doors
hidden under dingy carpet
Atop fire engine red hardwood
Wallpaper a pristine time capsule
to design dreams held before I was born
Stairs climbing to walled off places
Contents unknown
a possible cask of amontillado

A foundation from a century ago
dug from pasture
built from the rock it revealed
It crumbles a fine dust over everything I own
but never collapses

In summer
The house breathes
Exhaling humid air
Back from where it came
Because windows are lungs
And I, sleeping, its heart