Set for demolition, and empty for God
knows how long, the house lists like a rowboat
that’s taken on water. Windows gauzed
with dust and grief refuse to look out
toward the road, where two vultures balance
on a live utility pole, lifting one foot
at a time until their wings settle. Dear leasehold
of our mother’s mother’s mother, when did
your front porch unstitch from its original
seam, and why was there no selvedge to save
you from unraveling? How did your middle
of nowhere turn to somewhere? Out back,
fields tended for the landlord’s profit
are overrun with whiskey grass, waiting
on excavators and a new name, Palmetto Rose Estates.
From fronds and grasses, our grandmothers
wove baskets to lay their infants in the shade.
They shouldered hoes, their men long gone
to drink, disease, and arguments,
no river near enough back then, not yet, not yet,
to float a crying baby past a rich man’s daughter.
