The House
BROKEN frames and savage walls,
A house where nothing mattered;
Mother's hand enforcing rules,
Her children born and battered.
Life replaced with scattered chairs,
The stench of pain in every room;
Where children said their daily prayers
And Father drank amid the gloom.
This silent block of empty stone,
Where lemons on the tree are grown
By nature's hidden hand alone;
Her birds and bees now long since flown.
© Troy Southgate