A Poem

Sheriff’s Sale
(Beth Kephart)


On the last day
she sent us through, she sent us up,
she whispered my mother’s lace,
my mother’s crystal, my mother’s kitchen
table, eight Orientals, my father’s watch
are hidden, like it was some kind of war
we were in, like we were lowering our heads
to our own eviction.

Afterwards
the forsaken house stood forsaken
until one brow fell and a hinged door
buckled and the garden became fisted
and foiled, leaving its loosened seeds
to the squirrel, who carried them through the roof’s
soft tissue and dug them deep
into asbestos while in the bowl
of a chandelier
a black snake slept.

Snow made it want for its own beauty.
Wind made it howl.