Beloved, Lost

by Kelley White


the house I loved
in the town I loved
white clapboard
dark shutters

one great maple flaming in front
of a barn red door

never locked
open to all
green grass still

and bushel baskets of golden mums

a hammock strung
between two shagbark hickories

bicycles tossed beside the little picket
fence at the kitchen garden

we lived there
a woman and three children

grandparents nearby

dark shutters
white clapboard
in the town I loved
the house I loved


* * * * *

Pediatrician Kelley White has worked in Philadelphia and New Hampshire. Poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA. Her most recent chapbook is A Field Guide to Northern Tattoos (Main Street Rag Press.) Recipient of 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant she is Poet in Residence at Drexel’s Medical School. Her newest collection, No Hope Street, was recently published by Kelsay Books.