Poetry SITREP Written Works

The House That Keeps Standing by Louisa Powell

on

I tell the children the house is

still standing.

The coffee turns cold.

Your shoes sit by the door

again.

I’m home now.

Why can’t things go back?

My mistakes don’t define me.

I’m here. Isn’t that enough?

You could disappear tomorrow.

The children still ask why.

I fold laundry with shaking hands,

measuring every word,

afraid to breathe too loudly.

I keep the hardest things

behind my teeth.

Nothing I do is ever enough.

You make me the problem.

Still, the children laugh at the table.

Still, sunlight finds the floor.

The walls remember,

what they do not ask.

The house is still standing.

But I cannot breathe inside it.