Patrick O'Reilly - Belongings

We owned a ramshackle house in the lane.

In the dire winter months,
With pipes frozen stiff,
The clapboards rotten and moldy,
And the power ever out,
Weren't we cold and hungry?

Our shoes lay in puddles outside the door,
Wet with melted snow,
Falling all to pieces.

The old house ticked like a bomb against the dark.
It creaked and groaned
Under the weight of snow and debt
Making the baby cough with colic and wail with worry
That it might all collapse any of its new moments.

And though frost blossomed on the wall,
Those walls were ours.

We owned a house in a lane.

Patrick O'Reilly

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/belongings/