Matt's Blog

the sitter

a mangy shack of a thing
across the street from the giant grain elevators
next to the railroad tracks

a mean little place
in the middle of a neighborhood
abandoned by time

waist-high wire fence
surrounds the place
weeds grow up along the fence

framing the paint chipped house
and the neglected lawn
a portrait of loss

we enter the house
gloom settles over me
dryness grips my eyes and nose

inside the gray front room I meander
my brother stays beside mother
as she talks with the sitter

as I wander careful not to touch
any of the vague colorless furnishings
an old eye watches me warns me

my mother's green dress
the only color in the room
and that soon is gone

the husband behind us
sleeps snores snorts in his Lazy Boy
as we try to enjoy Speed Racer

at first commercial break
the TV is turned off and
we are banished to the outside

to roam around the back yard
with a rusted and broken pedal-tractor
that grazes on the over-grown grass

we stare down into the darkness
of the storm cellar
daring one another to descend
and wait for our mother to retrieve us