front porch

a small room
on the front of my aunt’s house
is beginning to cave in

it was once a porch
when she was a child
before it was boxed up,
pressed into service
as another room, just barely
for decades

All I remember about that porch
is that we never sat out there, she tells me

the electric meter was on that porch
and her mother warned her and my father
not to run around out there

they might jostle the meter
and somehow weaken the power supply
to the stovetop
where a giant speckled canner
full of green beans
was hesitantly boiling

There used to be a honeysuckle vine
off the side of that porch, she says

then one summer
a mess of blacksnakes nested there
and as soon as her mother saw
well, that was the end of the honeysuckle

That’s my dream, she says now
a little porch to sit on

she will get it
this room will be torn down
turned back into a porch, rebuilt
a former life restored

this time
she will sit out there
with her cat and her iced tea
watching the world happen
so much of it moving fast
and moving on
while she continues
to stay still