Her Winter House
       

It's always winter when I come, curbs drifted in,
the old man in his flannel gloves and woolen cap
burning garbage in the alley, black-ash
butterflies flying up around his rosy face,
and in the window Nana's head bent, silver
needle pulling light from one stitch to the next.
My father, working overtime, as much gone
as my dead mother. Dusk rushes every window
like a gray tide. Each time I'm still a stranger,
entering with snotty nose and chapped cheeks,
listening for my own voice, tinny and lost
as a chain-link gate clanging in December wind.

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Copyright © 2014 Susan Elbe All rights reserved
from The Map of What Happened
BkMk Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission