Cripple Creek, Colorado
No one lives there. The house is a tomb
with boarded up windows.
Its tar-paper skin tattered, its shingled roof—
tough as a donkey’s hoof—
has lasted through a tired century.
Inside is the scent of decay and abandonment.
with boarded up windows.
Its tar-paper skin tattered, its shingled roof—
tough as a donkey’s hoof—
has lasted through a tired century.
Inside is the scent of decay and abandonment.
It grew on a hilltop: A new square added,
with each child born—placed
like boxes, end-to-end—
in the gold mining camp.
One dry and breezy day a fire started.
The sharp smell of smoke spread.
The crackling sound of burning wood
filled the air as raging orange flames
devoured the house.
Under a burned-black skeleton,
a claw-foot bathtub sits in ash
Springs of the davenport twist
like a frozen tornado. An ornate headboard
is on the ground, used in one era,
destroyed in the next.
I stop to think, will my life end
like this place? Just bits and pieces
in a pile of smoldering cinders?
By Steven Wade Veatch
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