Settling

There are houses
in America,
in every corner,
each avenue
that breathe
heavy across empty
floorboards.

Stale linoleum
and dusty walls.
They are empty
and echoing.

One time,
whether years
of weeks ago,
there were 
people.

A young couple
who read
in bed,
a single mother
with two little girls.
She'd smoke on the porch.

An old woman with 
ten potted plants
and her husband
of 40 years
with taxidermy birds.

They've moved
they've aged.
The children
remember the 
houses
with peeling paint.
They smile
and drive on.

The houses settle deeper
and their bones creak in the
night,
cold drifting through.
Curtains hang like
drooping eyelids.

Everywhere
they weep,
wishing themselves
younger
and full of life.
The porch misses
late night cigarettes
and the air hangs stale
with ficus and 
ivy.

Abandoned in plain sight,
nestled between
their neighbors
sigh the broken
lonely houses,
no longer
homes.