gone the marriage the father gone
the plum tree out front its wild confetti
steady shade and sticky fruit blotching the sidewalk

gone the fence we’d be set to paint once a year
white droplets sprinkling the hostas 
black house numbers trailing down the upright pole 

the birch tree and its paper scrolls the slap 
of the side door on its ancient hinge 
the hook-and-eye lock 

gone the limestone gravel drive my sister’s 
and my sock-tender feet callousing each summer 
as we dared one another to race across gone

the garage its detritus and stash in the rafters
gone the radiant heat hot spots on the floor
the pull-down stairs to the attic and its boxes

old clothes in steam-weak cardboard
and crumbled bags gone the window unit AC
that kept one bedroom frigid while the rest

of the house sweltered and swooned
and the furniture we lugged 
from room to room always remaking 

gone the many couches and the weights
they held the transom windows and their cranks 
the big bay that once collapsed 

beneath a roof of half-melted snow
gone the dishwasher rolled out from the pantry
to hook to the sink skinnying around it on tip toes

to reach the stove gone the white phone 
anchored to the kitchen wall and the aunts we called on it
gone the extra-long cord we would stretch

to reach our bedrooms the rubbery spirals
pulled tight gone the record player 
and the VCR the CDs the DVDs the cable box

long gone the raspberry bush out back
my turned-up T-shirt bottom heavy 
with fruit for breakfast

the jonquils and crocus that would shoulder through
snow-lashed dirt come spring gone the creek—
North Branch of the Chicago River

that would swell some summers 
tip over its banks gone the plans to ford it
or to build a bridge gone the single mother 

her blue eye shadow silk blouses sour smell of nylons hot
in pointy shoes gone her gentle nature
and her rages too gone the grandmother

afternoon visits her handbags and bridge mix 
gone her magic and unsolicited advice
the joy the strife the nesting dolls we were

gone the death which wedged us open
gone the green in the windows
the wild the ordered harmony 

and what we knew about the world then gone
the shelter women give one another 
rough love flooding the house and yard.