Family History

By Richard Weaver

“… The house stands tall in memory,
bare of light, barely visible
in the layers asking…”

What holds these front porch
floorboards together?
Not the dirt that sifts
after an afternoon shower.
Not the broom that walks
its stutter step over
the cracks between.
Or the path worn
from the steps
to the front door that swings
open with the lightest knock of wind.
Or the memory of a hammer
wielding its persistent music
nearly a century before.

As the door drags a foot
across its belly, a scar arcs
across the pine heart
of a house dying this year.
And next. Before the ground
swells and hardens into cement.
The house stands tall in memory,
bare of light, barely visible
in the layers asking: How many coats
of green paint can a life hold?
How much spring is more
than the body can endure?

The author has returned as the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub in Baltimore. Other pubs: conjunctions, Louisville Review, Southern Quarterly, Birmingham Arts Journal, Coachella Review, FRIGG, Hollins Critic, Xavier Review, Atlanta Review, Dead Mule, Vanderbilt Poetry Review, & New Orleans Review. He’s the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and wrote the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005). He was one of the founders of the Black Warrior Review and its Poetry Editor for the first four years. Recently, his 200th prose poem was accepted since 2016.

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