My sundered house
by Robin Ford
[ poetry - november 08 ]
The house where I grew up
is sliced and sutured into offices,
coldness, coal fires, sash windows
that rattled through the night
are lost. No more headlights
swing at night across the ceilings
like lighthouse beams.
I left my childhood there.
Now a maze of ersatz boundaries
divide the house against itself,
severed cornices, blocked up hearths
are all that's left of the old rooms.
It is now a nest of lawyers
whose writs spit out
like viper's tongues at passers-by.
When it returns in dreams
I have to look the other way.
