What Haunts This House
by Sara Lynn Eastler
On the “Haunted House” by Edward Hopper, 1926.
What haunts this house that yaws deserted,
its windows dark-ringed with vacant stare
that boards no staff from shipyard affair
with soot that clings to walls that girted
a clapboard front once starched and shirted--
perhaps washed and pressed for Sunday prayer?
What haunts this house?
What family and furniture skirted
the now empty floorboards that creak where
bodies danced and scrubbed and dreamed in pairs?
Does hearth know loss, feel stained or hurted?
What haunts this house?
What haunts this house that yaws deserted,
its windows dark-ringed with vacant stare
that boards no staff from shipyard affair
with soot that clings to walls that girted
a clapboard front once starched and shirted--
perhaps washed and pressed for Sunday prayer?
What haunts this house?
What family and furniture skirted
the now empty floorboards that creak where
bodies danced and scrubbed and dreamed in pairs?
Does hearth know loss, feel stained or hurted?
What haunts this house?
Sara Lynn Eastler lives in Midcoast Maine where she dutifully serves her feline overlord and a flock of treat-loving chickens. She is a recovering biochemist, freelance contributor to the Southern Review of Books, and MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte. Her work can be found in Stanza, Cathexis Northwest Press, and Voices of Decolonization.