![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/640px-Old_House_Easthampton_Long_Island_by_Frederick_Childe_Hassam_1919_oil_on_canvas_-_New_Britain_Museum_of_American_Art_-_DSC09002-300x216.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It was her fault, really, that
\nthe neighborhood children had started calling it
\nThe Witch House.
\nIt had borne her neglect through the summer,
\nthe grass drying to crunching browns
\nthe roses grown feral and tangling
\nto a prickling snarl,
\nthe windows empty.<\/p>\n
It was just a house, she repeated like a chant,
\nand she had begun in these weeks past
\nthe task of cleaning it out, scrubbing away
\nthe stains of old hurts –
\nscraped knees and
\nshouted disappointments,
\nslammed doors –
\nand dusting dulled dreams from the
\ncorners where they had cobwebbed.
\nThese, perhaps, she could salvage with
\nthe balm of better days –
\nbicycle rides up and down the driveway,
\nfresh steamed rice, and
\nafternoon naps on the carpeted floor
\nto the buzzy babble of the radio –
\npolish them into trinkets she could
\ncherish and display next to the souvenirs
\nthey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d given her from their travels,
\nbefore illness and age,
\nbefore she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d run away.<\/p>\n
She found bright coats and patterned shawls
\nhaunting the hallway closet-
\nremnants of joyous youth-
\nnext to stacks of forgotten paperbacks
\nstill smelling of drunken chicken soup,
\nmothballs, and winter.
\nThe specter of her family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bustling
\nholiday visits lurked further in the dark,
\nfaded and gray.<\/p>\n
This is how ghosts are made,
\nshe thought, peering into the bedroom
\nshe had saved for last,
\nwhere she could still hear the soft
\necho of her Ama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice
\nhumming inside the old TV,
\nwhere the tick-tick-ticking of the
\nsewing machine still clustered
\nunder the bed with the dust bunnies.<\/p>\n
They are born of love left to sour
\ninside barren rooms and locked drawers,
\nignored and then forgotten.<\/p>\n
A window had been left slightly ajar,
\nprobably her oversight in her hurry to leave
\nthose months gone when the bedroom still felt occupied,
\nwhen the wound was still fresh, sorrow sharp.
\nSummer debris scattered like ash on white sheets.
\nShe lit a stick of incense and placed it before
\na framed photo of her grandparents,
\na makeshift shrine of sandalwood and sighs
\nas she began exorcising the
\nmemories curdled by grief and regret
\nwith little green stickers marking
\nthe cost of each.<\/p>\n
Later, she drove in the final nails outside,
\nthe sign bright even in the worn blue twilight,
\nthe house settling behind her, a box at her feet.
\nTomorrow, she would throw open the windows,
\nburn the paper money and sage,
\nunlock the doors for the strangers
\nto come and
\ncarry away
\nthe remains.<\/p>\n
It was her fault, really, that the neighborhood children had started calling it The Witch House. It had borne her neglect through the summer, the grass drying to crunching browns the roses grown feral and tangling to a prickling snarl, the windows empty. It was just a house, she repeated like a chant, and she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}