Katherine Mitchell

Your House

Hunched leaves fly
across the line
of bird tracks
in snow.

I stand outside the window
wishing you would all
come back.

No one cared if the rented
movies were good.
We had the humping dog story
and the backless dress story.

I step in closer.
The furniture is covered with sheets
like ghosts playing twister.
Your darkroom still set up
in the back hallway.

You made a rare print,
your son's face under a cloth
in the corner of the frame.
His hand outside the fabric holding it taut,
the surface pale and grainy
like an almost empty beach.

Katherine Mitchell holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri—Saint Louis. She works professionally as an Alexander Technique teacher. She also teaches Argentine Tango at Washington University in St. Louis with her husband. contact