Home is Where the Heart Breaks

photo by PSC

Home is Where the Heart Breaks        

Architect must have been drunk

when he designed that house --

two beds, one bath, and a kitchen so small

someone had to stand and push in his chair

in order to open the back door

if anyone came calling during dinner

The only one of ten on a tiny dead-end street

set sideways on its lot, only two lonely

windows of welcome facing forward

(no such notion as curbside appeal);

front door cowering on the side

under aluminum awning, nestled

behind trellis of red roses each June, and

the focal point upon entering?

Toilet in the tiny bath across the hall.

Still, that home managed to make room,

with some additions to accommodate

expanding and extended family,

housing, at one time or another,

both grandmothers and a widowed aunt,

and offering, always, a seat at the table

to a widower friend and his son at the holidays

House and homestead proffering up

all the peace and pain, grief and joys

of a mostly functional family

where those who love can hurt us worst,

with comments never intended to draw blood

but, doing so just the same; over time

alcohol erodes, cancer creeps in, and stroke

revokes all recollections of hearth and home

That house (long since sold off), still stands

sideways on a street of mostly strangers now

Former neighbors remain loosely connected

through distance and time by shared histories,

tied together by bittersweet memories and tales retold

when they meet to mourn their losses at wakes & funerals

And those folks who still recall, confess

that since she left the family

Christmas Eves have never been the same

  

Written in response to: Poetic Bloomings - WELCOME HOME – PROMPT #68  (August 12, 2012)