For Sale by Margo Taft Stever

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 23, 2016   For Sale   Margo Taft Stever

My childhood house is stripped, bared, open to the public. The for-sale sign impales the front pasture, grass is cut and prim, no trimmings left to save. Women in sable parade through halls and men in tailored suits talk about dimensions. They don’t know lizards present themselves on the basement stairs or worms dapple pears in the orchard. Doors of rabbit hutches hang from hinges and rust scratches on rust in wind, noise unheard by workers who remodel the old farmhouse into an Italian villa painted peach. Death can empty a house of shoes worn and new, of children who climbed the grandfather trees, impressing outlines like fossils littering the banks of the creek.            Copyright © 2016 Margo Taft Stever. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “In this poem, the past is a haunting force; the death of my father when I was a child and consequent sale of our home provides the backdrop. A few of my poems have appeared as a whole without needing much revision, but I wrote this one over the course of many years. In some ways, I will always be writing this poem.” —Margo Taft Stever   Margo Taft Stever is the author of The Lunatic Ball (Kattywompus Press, 2015) and Frozen Spring (Mid-List Press, 2002). She is the founding and current coeditor of Slapering Hol Press, the small press imprint of The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center. Poetry by Stever   The Lunatic Ball (Kattywompus Press, 2015) "Photo of Home From Home" by Richard Deutch "Home is so Sad" by Philip Larkin "Settling In" by Jenny Factor Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038