COUNTRY HOME ON OLD LORENA
by Jessica DePue

Acres sweltered to a halt
Beneath the fugue of blaze and ash
Earth did not rebound from this
Haphhazard slip of ill pressed luck

An heirloom fragile now as myth
Memory encombered by intractable loss
The old barn house bent and vexed
Her skeleton heaved against the flame

Her owner died a year before
Her vicious tears perplexed my youth
I could not ease my limbs the weight
Of that woman's torn complexities

An odd relief the years then warped
Drowned within their shadow walls
With them lurch and wane those days
Brewed and boiled our fated storm

On dry grass dwells family land
Sprawling as an outstretched wing
Flapping in the vacant wind
Which stirs the deadly Texas heat