The old farmhouse in Belleville,

rambling and reeking

of history that wasn’t mine,

possibilities of what might come

out of nothing.  I covered the seeping walls

a deep dark red.

Weeds overtook the house, snaking the dirty siding, the garden out back where previous owners grew green peppers and corn which made their way to the summer table,

now dry as  dust. That old lady,

her children gone from where she was. Years ago,

her husband and childhood that would never come

to fruition; the land out back,

the railroad tracks, rusting ladders

for miles. On summer nights

the trains lulled her life.

I knew I knew I knew she now said

stumbling the city block, the houses gray,

their windows –like people’s lives–mawing open.