The
Vacant House Next Door
by Hiromi Yoshida
by Hiromi Yoshida
Questions
hover thickly, (gargantuan
moths)
tattered curtain bits
framing
basement
windows
were
actually
mere cobwebs in the
vacant
house on E. Atwater Ave.
Bay
windows stare
sullenly
into adamant
sunlight,
(stark contrast with Indiana
University
fraternity houses and the
Co-Op
on E. 3rd St.) avalanche of
dust
motes,
debris
of unknown
years—a
biohazard I dare not step
into
(despite the enigmatic
threshold
where
the door
once
was), crumbling
and
festering—collapsing in upon its own
precarious
skeleton self—begging to be razed
to
the still fertile grounds.
Hiromi
Yoshida is
a winner of multiple Indiana University Writers' Conference awards.
Her poems have been published in The Asian American Literary Review,
Indiana Voice Journal, Evergreen Review, and Bathtub Gin. She
organized the Poets 4 Unity monthly reading series in Bloomington,
Indiana, in response to Election Day 2016.