Hemlock Street

Douglas Silver

 

The sign sat slanted in the front lawn where

I hid and sought, fought with fists and

Tasted the color of blood.

“For Sale,” sank through our grass like

My address yearned to bury our desertion in earth.

How could another dwell within my cave?

Rooms that played theater to my insurgence,

Heard phone calls from alarmed teachers,

Floors that withstood familial brawls,

Walls that endured and curved fists over rage for

What does it matter now?

How can another use the stove that nearly melted

Skin off my bone when I was ordered not to touch?

A family not mine can appreciate cracked windowpanes or

Singe marks on kitchen counters without experiencing our trials?

How will they know who fashioned his initials into

The drying concrete of our driveway and how, even now,

When it's too quiet, I can hear my mother's scream.

Shrill, like my sister's that Thanksgiving I toasted her for living in sin.

How can they sell the first place

My friends came when their kin troubled them?

The place I ran to, even in my loathing,

A name brushed on the mailbox not mine.

No one else will paint her walls with the care of

Swabbing alcohol on a child's wounds.

And though I live alone now,

I don't think another roof will cover me like home.