My childhood house is stripped,
bared, open to the public.
The for-sale sign impales

the front pasture, grass
is cut and prim, no trimmings
left to save.

Women in sable parade
through halls and men in
tailored suits talk about

dimensions. They don't know
lizards present themselves
on the basement stairs or worms

dapple pears in the orchard.
Doors of rabbit hutches
hang from hinges and rust

scratches on rust in wind, noise
unheard by workers who
remodel the old farmhouse

into an Italian villa painted peach.
Death can empty a house of shoes
worn and new, of children

who climbed the grandfather
trees, impressing outlines like fossils
littering the banks of the creek.


About this poem
"In this poem, the past is a haunting force; the death of my father when I was a child and consequent sale of our home provides the backdrop. A few of my poems have appeared as a whole without needing much revision, but I wrote this one over the course of many years. In some ways, I will always be writing this poem."
-Margo Taft Stever

About Margo Taft Stever
Margo Taft Stever is the author of "The Lunatic Ball" (Kattywompus Press, 2015) and
"Frozen Spring" (Mid-List Press, 2002). She is the founding and current co-editor of Slapering Hol Press, the small press imprint of the Hudson Valley Writers' Center.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2016 Margo Taft Stever. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate