To Get to 1835 Apex Avenue, A Poem

you have to scale silverlake's steep slopes

& softly stop at

the superfluous security gate

before you make it

to the driveway.

it started out modest, only two stories

high but, over the years, they’ve made it

a house full of love

flower beds outline the pool in back, with

perceptive roses, insightful tulips & curious, cream-colored

hydrangeas their grandmother used to

spend hours hunched over,

patiently tending to their soil in this

house full of love

brown walls whisper secrets from the past,

adorned with old photographs & wooden

sculptures from abroad, study the

smiling faces for long enough & you’ll

begin to see the same characters reappear,

year after year, their faces permanently etched

& frozen in time, hanging in this

house full of love

but now there’s a strange silence coming

from the kitchen & it makes you remember

who they’re all missing;

laughter no longer bounces

off the

carelessly congested cars in the driveway

& outside, flowers lie

dead. the oven sits cold & flavorless

while the happy faces on

hollow walls taunt their

good fortune, all in this

house of love.

Zara Khan is a student at the University of California, Berkeley.