Paint peeled
from the clapboard siding,
a house slanting
sharply left;
long broken,
the windows were black eyes
to the soul of what was
left to linger.
Inside,
the stove pipe hung
slightly askew
where the cast iron belly once warmed
the bones of seven kids.
A moth-eaten quilt draped
on the wicker rocker
near the thirsty hand pump
and rusted steel basin.
Seventy years of beer bottles
pornography, unfurled condoms
and tramp cut cans
cluttered the room
with a battered antique mattress
atop a crooked,
hand-hewn cherry bed frame
that moaned of marital obligation
and teenage twiddling.
Out back,
the shoulder-wide track
of white, Alabama sand
began at the door; it wound
through the row of sycamores
and down the lane
to where the peanuts and cotton
were planted.
An old mule plow
rested in the corner
along a short stone wall,
the remnants of leather reins
limp against blade,
half-sunken into the earth
waiting to work once more.
Between
the field and homestead
the smokehouse leaned on
a stack of hickory
wedged between the splintered side
and the blooming chinaberry bush.
Underneath the rotting foundation
a hole
with some living thing inside
unaware of the dozers
idling nearby
waiting
to tear
it all
apart.
Daniel Ruefman is an emerging poet whose work has most recently appeared in SLAB, The Fertile Source, Tonopah Review, and Temenos. He recently completed his Ph.D. in Composition and TESOL from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and currently teaches writing at the University of Wisconsin–Stout.
