534 Lancaster Poem by Seamus O' Brian

The old house died quietly
under the white hot eye
of the Florida sun,
not quite gallantly bearing
a few windows splinted
with snail-trailing boards.

A few fractured panes billowing
unspoken shame—like skin clinging
hospital gowns, their remnants
of table cloth, once
courtiers of raucous holiday
feasts, and patches of bed sheets
whose memories of tickled children
laughing, love-kindled whispers
evaporated like rain in the kiln-
baked gutters of Lancaster Street.

Joints and ligaments sigh
With particulate expirations
of quiet disintegration,
as flies helicopter above
the tragedy, and Levites
pass by on the other side.

The necrosis of floor boards-
festering, ulcerating,
under-sink cavities,
facilitate the transmission
of foot-padded, whiskering pathogens.

Under the blast of the Jacksonville
sky, ribbons of paint push
off from the wall, tendrils of ivy
ascend from the soil.

Humidly June, frosty December
paint crawls away; ivy
cracks beams and the memory
of chatter dissipates into
the sun-slanting dust
of long empty rooms.

Silence.

Decay.

A home
in death.


Crack the chest,
open the door.
A hand laid softly
upon an old pine floor.
She looks up to his face,
her eyes quote her heart
'I think there's still hope.'

And the house hears again
the sound of a voice
the touch of a hand,
and on Lancaster Street
the old house is breathing,
living once more.