Last Look, poem by Daniel Ruefman

Paint peeled

from the clapboard siding,

a house slanting

sharply left;

long broken,

the windows were black eyes

to the soul of what was

left to linger.

Inside,

the stove pipe hung

slightly askew

where the cast iron belly once warmed

the bones of seven kids.

A moth-eaten quilt draped

on the wicker rocker

near the thirsty hand pump

and rusted steel basin.

Seventy years of beer bottles

pornography, unfurled condoms

and tramp cut cans

cluttered the room

with a battered antique mattress

atop a crooked,

hand-hewn cherry bed frame

that moaned of marital obligation

and teenage twiddling.

Out back,

the shoulder-wide track

of white, Alabama sand

began at the door; it wound

through the row of sycamores

and down the lane

to where the peanuts and cotton

were planted.

An old mule plow

rested in the corner

along a short stone wall,

the remnants of leather reins

limp against blade,

half-sunken into the earth

waiting to work once more.

Between

the field and homestead

the smokehouse leaned on

a stack of hickory

wedged between the splintered side

and the blooming chinaberry bush.

Underneath the rotting foundation

a hole

with some living thing inside

unaware of the dozers

idling nearby

waiting

to tear

it all

apart.

 

Daniel Ruefman is an emerging poet whose work has most recently appeared in SLAB, The Fertile Source, Tonopah Review, and Temenos.  He recently completed his Ph.D. in Composition and TESOL from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and currently teaches writing at the University of Wisconsin–Stout.