Foreclosure Notice II: Our Winter House
BY NANDI COMER
We find an abandoned house.
Once inside, we clear space,
look for kindling.
Zeke starts the fire
with a wooden chair from the kitchen,
cabinet doors, stuffed animals,
the end table, magazines.
In goes a foreclosure notice.
In goes the couch
—blankets we keep.
The broken dresser drawers
warm our legs for hours.
There is so much left to us.
Box springs, an empty jewelry box
we burn it all
—bookcases, a desk.
Pitch the dead plants in this furnace
Small patent leather shoes,
a pink swim suit.
Pull up the floorboards.
Leave the pictures on the walls.
Burn what burns.
We find an abandoned house.
Once inside, we clear space,
look for kindling.
Zeke starts the fire
with a wooden chair from the kitchen,
cabinet doors, stuffed animals,
the end table, magazines.
In goes a foreclosure notice.
In goes the couch
—blankets we keep.
The broken dresser drawers
warm our legs for hours.
There is so much left to us.
Box springs, an empty jewelry box
we burn it all
—bookcases, a desk.
Pitch the dead plants in this furnace
Small patent leather shoes,
a pink swim suit.
Pull up the floorboards.
Leave the pictures on the walls.
Burn what burns.
NANDI COMER is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry and an MA in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University. She is a Cave Canem fellow. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in The Journal of Pan African Studies, Third Coast, and Más Médula. She is originally from Detroit.