House Keeping
After she left the house for realities unknown,
the abandoned rooms hollowed out
small discrete spaces for her to rest within
should she ever return.
Buses still stopped next door,
sparrows hopped over the stalks of phantom roses,
Eventually, Girl Guides selling cookies nixed
her address off their clipboards.
The mail began to forward itself to nowhere.
The house tidied up the way den denizens do.
sifting through mites and squamous dust
for signs of her in-dwelling mind.
It found non-intrinsic parts of her
which it glued to the stale air as her likeness,
yet this remembered facsimile
kept dissolving in puddles of moonlight.
The house began to whisper to passersby’s.
It called to migrant cats, homeless mice,
indigenous tribes of Carpenter bees.
A face on a board was planted in the yard,
prospective buyers entered and left,
none moved in.
The previous owner came back for a while,
She occupied the new spaces
pleased with the improvements.
Then she left the house
riding upon a starlit stairlift,
her ghost moving upwards to a safer premise
where grab bars and access ramps
were reimagined
in a newly renovated sky.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2021
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