Cover Art: David Wojnarowicz, Untitled from "Sex Series." 1990. Gelatin silver print. MOMA.

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Hurtful Homes

I always wonder if our spirits
somehow haunt those homes
we so lived in. A space,
once filled, can surely
never be the same.
Spirits haunted our old 1910
pre-fabricated, Sears Roebuck home
at the edge of an evil Ohio woods.
The house, filled with pain
(even the little ones were visited
in dreams) is the place
that still holds a wash of the tears
I shed when we left.
A friend said, “But you had
nothing but pain here!”
Surely we knew we would
ever bear the scars of there,
history’s fingers stroking
our faces yet. Now the house
is blue, no longer red-shingled,
and the row of Italian cypress
and the generous dogwood
are as gone as we.
I have never re-entered
our old homes scattered
about the world, have only studied
their new faces, standing outside.
But I can count the steps
from here to there for each,
steps taken and re-taken
as I step out the story
of how the past is never
ever truly left behind.

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Carol Hamilton has recent and upcoming publications in Commonweal Magazine, Bluestem, Southwestern American Literature, Pour Vida, Adirondack Review, The Maynard, Sanskrit Literary Magazine, U.S.1 Worksheet, Broad River Review, Homestead Review, Shot Glass Journal, Poem, Louisiana Literature, Haight Ashbury Poetry Journal, The Aurorean, Blue Unicorn, Birmingham Poetry Review, Pigeonholes Review, and others. She has published 17 books: children's novels, legends, and poetry, most recently, SUCH DEATHS from Virtual Arts Cooperative Press Purple Flag Series. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma..

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past, Madelyn Chen                                                                                                                                                                                                next, Jennifer Judge