Empty Poem by Jenny Kalahar

Small, empty clouds
reflect in hollow windows
of the square white house,
worn as smooth as those same clouds.
The surrounding tangled grasses
stand tall to guard this lifeless, listing shell.
A gust from some next storm
will likely bring it down
or, perhaps it knows the prairie winds
will gentle
will let it stand another fifty years

No one will come to live inside
its wood-floored rooms again.
Jars of preserves, caked in dust and plaster,
still line these bare-stone basement walls.
Deadened greens of cucumbers,
darkened reds of once-ruby jams
and browned peaches fed no one and never will.
No life remains within those jars—
they are food for someone who will not return

The mystery is:
that slender handprint here and there
upon a windowsill, upon a door,
a finger traced along the dusty back
of a lone rocking chair
near an empty-cupboard kitchen.
The mystery is:
who placed a yellow dress
across the sloping, damp-stained mattress
the torn lace collar crumbling in its weakened folds?
Who left those soiled fingerprints upon the sunken pillow
and parted the shreds of cotton curtains
before walking far away again?
Perhaps no one at all
as even these cracked and faded walls
could not bear to watch
could not bear to hope for occupants again
and held their breath
till they were alone once more

This house will not dare to hope
that it will ever do again what it was built for.
It sits barren, childless
has no one to protect or hide or nurture
and only serves to break the swirls of prairie breezes
hears no footfalls
shelters no sleepers,
and lightens no burdens

There has never been an emptier thing