Every house has a story

The swish of the fabric of long skirts

and high-collared white blouses

the only sounds of a summer’s day

She feels the slight moisture

beading on her forehead

as she directs the maid in her dusting

She walks to the door, fanning herself

and looks out to the street

with its uninterrupted noonday quiet

She hears the faint clang:

the blacksmith hammering the anvil

a few blocks away in town

She waits, not sure if the waiting

will have its reward, but waiting

nonetheless for a whistled tune,

a throat cleared, the occasional song

Once so neatly tended

Once so neatly tended, once

so precisely flowered and shrubbed,

now overlooked, forgotten, unkempt,

as if it had just awakened disheveled

from an all-night bender, none

too good for wear. Her window, once

trimmed in green and white shutters,

now dirty, shutters flaking small chips

to the weeds below. Once, she leaned

forward and laughed; the sound

swallowed into a past that exists

only in his mind; no one left

to remember.

Photograph by Peter Hager via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

The house is empty

The house is empty

now, waiting for the next,

but it should not be empty

now because it is 18 years

of life and 40 years of memory,

and visits, and laughter,

and grief, and Christmas trees,

and Thanksgiving dinners

with Mogen David wine

and the night the roof leaked

from Hurricane Betsy

and the fraternity party

and the king cake parties

and the breakfast after

the senior prom

and the arguments

and the slammed doors

and the children

and the children’s children

and mincemeat pie

and salmon croquettes

and banana fritters

and barbequed ribs

from the barbeque drum.

The house doesn’t remember

now, the house is empty

now, but the house is never

empty, never will be,

never is now is never and

why do I always remember

the hardwood window sills

Photograph by Kim Newberg via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.