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title: The abandoned house down Deer Nest Lane

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# The abandoned house down Deer Nest Lane
**by Liza Wolff-Francis**

concrete blocks 
still hang on
to their angle with sky, 
try to ground themselves 
in who they are, scent 
of musty basement,
moss texture, 
grotesque graffiti words, 
symbols with no meaning. 
Paint from spray cans 
teenagers stole from 
Ace Hardware to spray 
their angst out. I imagine 
the way shadows 
of their narrow bodies bent 
from paint clouds as they 
muffled their noses into 
their t-shirts. They painted 
a circle around the handprints 
left stamped over a door,
leaving them as they had 
always been, one
larger than the other.

The teens didn’t remember
Clemmie or Walton
when they were young
and swayed to John Denver
in dense heat of July,
or the single pecan pie 
Clemmie made at Christmas, 
sharing a sliver piece 
with each neighbor to make
it stretch between houses.
They didn’t know them even 
from when their house 
foreclosed. Someone said 
their eldest came back 
once, was seen creeping 
around inside after that place 
was just a broken tea cup,
bottom cracked, insides 
stained, after coyotes went in
and roof turned to sky.
