© Lynelle Whitney, Family of Patient
Twisted vines
Creep, dying
Up the lonely house
Black-eyed windows
Curtainless
Flatly face the world
Defying all
To look inside
Her emptiness.
Sagging porch slants,
Slides & splinters
Dried wood cracks a warning, says
“STAY BACK”
“No Welcome here.”
Heavy door
Ancient bolts
Layered thick with brown disuse
And rust
Guard the inner sanctuary
Old-barred prison
Dark-walled asylum
Life’s storm shelter.
Inside,
The carpet trodden old & dark
With fear
Lights extinguished
Candles gutted
Burned to stumps
And not replaced.
And down the hollow hallway
Lined with doorways framed
In tattered dreams
Lie rooms now home of
Grey-winged moths
Spider webs
The smell of mice
And dust.
… And in the corner
Remote, removed
Far, far corner
Distant corner
Hiding corner
Lost in shadows
A darker shadow crouches.