Dwelling

My house becomes a grief-museum. In this room

dust covered guitars, strings that taste

of blue, a limp sheet over one painting,

two old trees leaning in someone’s front yard.

My house becomes a pasture of disbelief. The bed

holds the valley of his shoulder, his slippers lie,

grubby and dormant. In the corner stands a wooden

cane he bought to use when he got old and stiff.

My house becomes a voice-garden. Trees fling

about in useless wind. Branches scratch surprise in

rattled time. The refrigerator moans its loneliness,

the dryer shrieks at the clothes, tears apart limbs.

My house becomes a loss-factory, full of nuts

and bolts that don’t match up, long iron shafts

that have forgotten their use, baskets of keys

that no longer match any possible doors.

Judy Kaber’s poems have appeared in journals such as Rattle, Pleiades, december, Poet Lore, and Prairie Schooner. She won the 2023 Maine Poetry Contest, the 2024 Maine Literary Short Works Poetry Award, and the 2024 Naugatuck River Review Narrative Poetry Contest. She is a past poet laureate of Belfast, Maine.