YSJ Anthology 2015

THE OLD HOUSE
Charnell Peters
Sister and I kneel in the narrow hallway that opens into the cavern of
this house whose home we are stuffing into leaning cardboard boxes.
Mother spins upstairs, taking in the remains: the gray bathtub where
we washed dishes, the crumbling wallpaper revealing shingled
butterflies with dissolved wings, and all our footprints still etched in
the laid over tufts of carpet.
Feet in dirt—
we step away together
to a continuing day.
We lock the home we have packed into a large dark box and feel the
slam of metal against concrete. Mother curves my shoulders back to
the sky—a woman’s right. Then we move apart, our faces turned
across miles, over the hills and the barren tree line, toward a
receding light.
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