Foreclosure

by Sally Jo Sorensen

                             for NP

Some things the bankers can't appreciate       beside this house
on Adams Street, a line of peonies         a dozen blossoms deep     
waves fists      deep  purple, pink and white
to clash with clouded glass         a picture window
slashed, droop of broken           blinds,  weekend shoppers piling
on steps some say are under water.         There's broken toys
left in the back, winter-bleached dolls         and rusted trucks
the grass will cover soon.     I steal these flowers
for the one who won't       write down the loss
but take the risk    delivered in a Mason jar.

 

Comments

[Heather Miller]

God, Sally Jo, is there nothing you can't do? You and Thomas Hardy grab my soul. This poem gets to the essence of loss and oblivion, the peonies surviving surviving, along with the bleached dolls and the steps under water. You are Hardy's true daughter. Check out his "During Wind and Rain." I am glad I know you.

[Heather Miller]

I love everything here, but if I had to pick a nit, it'd be those bankers opening the poem. But I was glad they weren't realtors. And I'm sorta blurry on the weekend shoppers piling things on the steps. But these are tiny tiny nits. The poem triumphs.

[Susan Allen]

Oh Sally Jo, this is just beautiful, just perfect. I love it very much. Thank you for this.

[Franz K. Baskett]

When I read Saljo's caesura poems I get the image of her in a cold, monastic room pouring over the staves of the Cynewulf. This is a very good poem. Not a hair out of place. But I wanted it to go on.

[Kathryn Gessner]

To a certain extent, I have to agree with Franz, but only because the poem is so good and willing to draw me into what a house can mean besides whatever it will sell for.