A low ceiling of sky sealed our horizons
whip-stitched by unpruned pines
sharp and useless as a grandmother’s spindles.
Now the lawn whirligig jeers at a tilt,
no flowers call from frozen ground.
All beauties tarnish in the weathering gray,
crippled flowerpots offer bracken,
mossy basement stairwell yields a locked door,
threshold littered with leaf mold and mist,
the skeleton key lost long ago.
There was that garage sale you had:
the pewter, the china, the chipped statues.
You overpriced everything, also forgiveness.
The house was packed, we moved that spring.
We all moved on.
–
Christi Krug’s poetry has appeared in everything from religious magazines to self-help books to comic book anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and recently served as creative resident at North Cascades Institute. Four of her nonfiction stories have previously appeared in Halfway Down the Stairs.
© 2021, Christi Krug
Halfway Down the Stairs 