Same Stars, Different Houses

by Wynne Huddleston

We planned to run away, but never did. I
lived as a hermit in a new brick house full
of doors, sisters that shut me out, a nagging
mom who did everything, and a dad
who was miles away at work, or at home
booming, Don’t do this! or Why did you do

that? You, my friend, subsisted in a house
of ill repair, with a present, but miserly father
who favored sons over daughter. Your mom,
imposing Cinderella chores, had been taken
by your father’s uniform and promises
of seeing the world. Now a bitter,
middle-aged woman, who’d yet to cross
the ocean, was stuck in an old house with no

plumbing. But it was lovely once. It hugged us
with its wrap-around porch, it intrigued us
with its hole-in-the-roof skylight
above your bed. Whenever I’d spend the night
we’d lie there looking through it and wish
for a man who would promise
those same stars to us.

Wynne Huddleston lives in Little Rock, Mississippi, and is a music teacher, member of the Mississippi Poetry Society and a board member of the Mississippi Writers Guild. Her poetry can be read in over 30 publications, including Birmingham Arts Journal, Southern Women’s Review, Stymie Magazine, Camroc Press Review, From the Porch Swing, The Mom Egg and Halfway Down the Stairs. Visit her website to find out more about her .