Camellia

The smell of roses and honeysuckle once perfumed this porch

pear blossom, apple jam, fresh paint.

But now all that lingers here is hot grass

and the acrid stench of rodents and decay.

The honeysuckle has long since withered.

The pear tree is broken, split in half

under the weight of its own unwanted fruit.

Emptiness lives here.

But better emptiness than a fullness you could not abide.

An anorexic house, wasting away from the inside.

Population, dust motes

seven cockroaches

twelve mice

two ghosts.

The floors creak now, old bones unused to life's stretching.

The roof cried rusty tears down yellowed walls.

Once laughter and wails echoed on the hardwood

running feet, shrieks of delight...

Silent now.

A bird calls

somewhere

across the overgrown backyard, singing

as the back deck returns to nature.

Out front, the only thriving thing

are the camellias

scentless

beautiful

the delicate, translucent blooms concealing

that deeper in, the flowers

are mostly dead.