at fifty-two my mother is ready
to bomb our family home

the lawn is rocky dirt and holes
from dead trees finally excavated
before they tipped in a storm
the front door is cracked paint
wreathed in spiders’ webs and insect bodies

it is difficult to get inside
my sister’s body keeps falling
down the stairs on a stretcher
someone drops their side and the house coughs
us all up again

the dogs start to howl from the bedroom
ghosts of old furniture
all the configurations that have been
crowd us into the middle of the rooms

in the basement the water is rising
the spiders crawl upwards
the mice panic in the walls

my mother runs to the kitchen
her plants she was rooting in the window
have burst their jars and the roots
thick as trunks have wormed their way
down the drain of the sink
searching

she tries to wash her hands
get rid of some of this
but the water is the barest trickle
my mother snaps out of it

no one should go in that house ever
it’s not even worth the resale value
that’s how good it will feel to see it burn

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Aly Pierce is a UMASS Boston MFA candidate in poetry and an astronomy enthusiast. She lives in Salem and interns for the record label Deathwish Inc. Her work can be found online in Wyvern Lit. You can find her on twitter or instagram as @instantweekend.