Foundation Up the hill, scant remains of an old foundation, first house here that burned long ago—wood, not stone, so buildings standing are what came after. This house newer, and the barn, outhouse and three weathered outbuildings. Who lived there, I’ve no idea, deed traced back only so far. I wonder sometimes if digging there I’ll find traces of habitation—metal or ceramic, likely, that escaped the fire, or came through only to be lost in the rubble, long since rotted. All it seems now is stones and soil, grown up with weeds, a few young trees and two old stumps where trees had earlier been cut. Imagine, if this house or any is true measure, the tales that lie amid scattered stones up the hill. //// Burma-Shave The bright white backs of a series of signs on the opposite shoulder flashed as I passed last night on a stretch of road I’d ridden on most of my life. It was the same sweeping curve where six Burma-Shave signs—a witty jingle when read— stood just off the shoulder on my side of the road when I was a kid—a memory forgotten until triggered just then. But just which of the hundreds of jingles Burma-Shave used was the one I read day after day when I rode there eludes me, though a few I’ve seen seem vaguely familiar. I’d think it would be instantly clear if I saw the same one I saw on every trip back from town as a child. And what were the signs I saw the backs of last night? Identical advertisements for a U-pick apple business. Not jingles. Not “Some roses are red, some apples are, too. Not far ahead, we’ve got plenty for you. U-Pick Apples.” Just U-Pick Apples with unreadable smaller type sign after sign, a memory jogged by their presence. /////// Matthew J. Spireng’s 2019 Sinclair Poetry Prize-winning book Good Work was published in 2020 by Evening Street Press. An 11-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is the author of two other full-length poetry books, What Focus Is and Out of Body, winner of the 2004 Bluestem Poetry Award, and five chapbooks. He was the winner of The MacGuffin’s 23rd Annual Poet Hunt Contest in 2018 and the 2015 Common Ground Review poetry contest. Website: matthewjspireng.com.
Lightwood 