Less a house than a ruin
Wooden bones
draped with sagging skin
Cloudy eyes
swallowing the light
On the front of the garage
above a wall that was a door
is a metal loop
screwed to crumbling melamine
A basketball hoop
Someone put it there
How could you forget?
The table’s half set
and there’s a kettle on the range
boiled dry
The wall is falling down
The roof is falling in
How did it come to this?
Things get forgotten
People get forgotten
You forgot about this place
or they forgot about you
and it’s so easy for things to fall apart
It’s the natural order
Disorder
But once upon a time
in a house that was new
with painted walls
and gleaming windows
with clean plates
and the kettle steaming
you put up a basketball hoop
so boys and girls could play
You put it up
out of love
Love is why
you build things
you don’t need
Nobody needs
a basketball hoop
but you did it anyway
and anyway
it’s the one thing that remains
