It always seemed inevitable that the little house was doomed
Vines cascading over its face, garbage bins permanently pushed up against the front door
Cream-colored metal siding on the raised main floor warped and pitted
A lonely leftover of its kind, neighbors replaced by newer buildings many times over
Nobody left to care for what was left there

The very last man to live here left reminders of himself
LB made crude metal cutouts in whimsical shapes of rockets and planets
Affixed to the tall front fence by barbed wire; he was afraid of his surroundings
But he held onto the house until he physically couldn’t, and it sat empty when he left
Nobody left to care for what he left there

On a Friday in the fall, the inevitable fulfilled
A decade after vacancy and seven months after LB died,
His little house left us, too. One of the oldest in the city;
It was too far gone. Crews came to wreck it as soon as they had a demolition permit
Nobody left to care for what was left there

I came by to pay my respects, to a man I’d never met and the home he inhabited, both subsumed
The little house a pile of rubble: ornate rotting wood window frames, tin siding, asbestos
I took some tools with me, hoping to save LB’s rockets and planets from the fence
Couldn’t get them off, fused onto barbed wire by rust, I took a brick from the pile and headed home
Nobody left to care for what I left there