Albert Huffstickler
Kinfolk
They didn’t seem to mind
that they were never going anywhere
in their old grey houses never painted,
veins rising on the weathered boards like
old flesh
and the cracks in the walls and the rooms
dark
and the yards smelling of wild growth
and chamber pots.
They seemed to have sprung up there
like the weeds.
The kitchens smelled of coal oil and boiled
coffee.
There was a darkness in these old houses
I could not fathom.
Nights, I’d dream sometimes
of raw red faces suspended above blue
bib overalls
like lanterns
standing before those grey veined, sagging
houses,
windows dark, hoarding darkness
as though there were a scarcity.
And that darkness in my blood somehow,
a legacy from those lank, bone-faced
strangers
who were my kin.
Page(s) 12
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