The siding was chipping
as if he hadn't painted it in years
because he hadn't,
and the dirty beige that was once white
revealed the old wood bones.
But the house was plumb and square;
it was a tailor house,
as he called it,
and the plumbing was put together
as if by Picasso.
The lawn was interrupted
by the squares of vegetable plots
like the victory gardens that never went away,
cared for, never wasted, necessary.
He liked to be independent.
Up the dirt driveway,
the air was drunk on berry wine
and could fail a breathalyzer,
and it poisoned the blood through the lungs.
He stole empty wine bottles and corks.
Sweet turned sour
with tobacco smoke that weaved
circles around his head and
bled into everything with no way
to remove, not even with bleach.
His hair was black
with long streaks of grey
that he pulled behind his head
and over the collar of his black leather jacket
with a hair-tie from his dead brother.
The hook of his nose
was offset by the deep set of his eyes that
shaded darker than his leather couch skin,
stained by the glare of the sun
and the heritage in his blood.
He sat on the green rocking chair
with a beer in his hand
gazing out on the land of his fathers
that were once pushed further west
and, slowly, returned to the dirt.
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Once, We Lived | Poetry Collection Completed
PoetryA collection of poetry from the high-school years of an semi-angsty teen with too much time on her hands. This is an exploration of the different facets of life and the perceptions of a teen of the 2010s with a knack for words. Warning: contains con...
