Packing Up the House

The baby teeth rattling in a bedside table, kept for love or superstition.

The puckered quilt that held the dream where Mom disappeared.

The tumble I took down the basement stairs, ending sharp with the taste of blood.

The fat cluster of Concord grapes in the garden, so ripe they drip, and the wasps crawling.

The porcelain tub ringing with a seal bark cough, air thick with shower steam and prayer.

The rabid bat in the master bath, battering itself against the mirror.

The tall pine swaying with wind over my bedroom, and the nest of vultures in its crown.

The neighbor’s puppy teething on my new dress, punching holes like a moth.

The crayon graffiti uncovered by a lifted couch, too late now to ground the culprit.

The fox with a lady’s scream in the woods behind the house, night after night.

The piano, now dusty, and the song I never put to paper.

The frozen October night that snapped green trees like gunshots over the still marsh.

The sour smell of the cupboard under the stairs, holding my last journal laying fallow.

Things once lost are found and placed in boxes to be lost again.

Some of it we’ll leave behind.

_____________________

Author's Note: This poem was originally published here on vocal, but has since also been published by the engine(idling in their fourth issue, themed "Haunts and Hometowns"