Tenancy, 1940s

By Michele Sharpe

Set for demolition, and empty for God 
            knows how long, the house lists like a rowboat
                        that’s taken on water. Windows gauzed 

with dust and grief refuse to look out
            toward the road, where two vultures balance 
                        on a live utility pole, lifting one foot 

at a time until their wings settle. Dear leasehold 
            of our mother’s mother’s mother, when did 
                        your front porch unstitch from its original 

seam, and why was there no selvedge to save 
            you from unraveling? How did your middle 
                        of nowhere turn to somewhere? Out back, 

fields tended for the landlord’s profit 
            are overrun with whiskey grass, waiting
                        on excavators and a new name, Palmetto Rose Estates. 

From fronds and grasses, our grandmothers
            wove baskets to lay their infants in the shade.
	                They shouldered hoes, their men long gone

to drink, disease, and arguments, 
            no river near enough back then, not yet, not yet, 
                        to float a crying baby past a rich man’s daughter. 

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Michele Sharpe, a poet and essayist, is also a high school dropout, hepatitis C survivor, adoptee, and former trial attorney. Her essays appear in venues including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Poets & Writers. Poems are recently published or forthcoming in Sweet, The Mom Egg Review, Rogue Agent, and Salamander. She lives in North Florida.

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