“Foundations” |

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by Susan Muth

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The guns are hidden beneath the house, stashed
away behind fragile glass encased in wood.
I stand at the structure’s center with the cabinets,
a record player, and a lamp that flickers
on and off like a fragile radio signal.

The guns are hidden beneath the house, the pistols
and the shotguns, bullets and their cases, and I
have a need to speak of myself above them—
on the foundation of slotted wood I walk on,
or the way I talk over my mother’s wine glass
clinking against granite countertops.

The guns are hidden beneath the house with the wine
cellar slightly above, wine feeding into my mother’s glass
like a reliable garden hose. Disordered bedrooms
grace this house’s peak, backed by my father’s

arsenal locked away.

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Susan Muth is a first-year poetry candidate at George Mason University’s MFA in creative writing. Before that, she graduated from Penn State with a BA/MA in English and world literature. She is from all over due to growing up in a military family, but chooses to call Burke, Virginia her home.

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