Poem on Home

By Hannah Liberman

Silence slips through the slit under the doorway and fills the empty spaces of the home; piling up in the corners And sticking to our skin. While thin strands of sunshine blend into cluttered walls—

Glaring they come, warm they linger, and then, suddenly dull and all used up, they shrivel away coldly.

There is a man who walks slowly toward the house, Some days, he lurches and shrieks, hurtling forward with a rage too immense for its human vessel. Others, his footsteps are hushed and hopeful—his sorrow waning, or wafting off his skin so pungent it threatens to swallow him up and eat each of us whole.

He is too tall and too thin, With slim ankles that creak, poised to splinter at any moment.

But trembling limbs will appear down the line. Now, hands are not yet shaking and Brother’s eyes are not yet drooped,

and Mama laughs.

On the front porch, we push cherry pits through oozing, pulpy flesh. In an August sweet and swampy, the juice stains sticky palms and little teeth

and Mama whispers there is nothing to fear—

Because there isn’t, save for the heat and the drought.

By Hannah Liberman