Kinship

I left the trail temporarily,
my backpack straps tugging
my shoulders down and back
until I found this place, off
the beaten path and becoming
a part of the soil that once
supported its structure.

I laid my burden down
on a rock and wandered
the ruin, noting a rusted
refrigerator, gaping, a rotten
opening in a gap-toothed grin.

Clapboard siding was piled
and ready, the house skinned
and awaiting a cleansing fire
that never came, snow now piled
over the whole.

A single sock, a child’s doll, smashed
Ball glass jars, the half
buried detritus of lives
interrupted, transported elsewhere
in a clenched heartbeat.

I sat on a rock nearby, still,
but for the wind sliding
over the minute hairs on my skin,
akin with the emptied rooms
in front of me, now
open to the sky.