a poem inspired by Niven's Velva Jean ~ with apologies, as needed

Abandonment

You dare look at me

Old house with siding grey and spare

You stand tall and—

proud?

Fraud!

You, empty of life

 years gone gone gone

How dare you look proud

As if still housing families

and Sunday dinners with offspring

and their children?

Gone 

All gone

to modern houses with insulation

and electric lights and indoor baths

Vanished

one by one all slipped away

your people are no more.

Say— !

Don’t you hear?

You have no purpose save to remind me

Of winter nights with chamber pots

And hot summer nights rank with sweat

Where, shaking with fear I saw

wild creatures in woods

That bite and sting

My mother lived in you, old house

- and died.

Stop

stop hoping

and pretending

Fall down

Go

Let me

Be.