"Bird Lady"

The pale yellow house down the street reminds me of the bird lady’s that lived next door to me when I was a child. She always glared, lurking in the shadows, ready for children to disturb her domain of unkempt lawn, chain link fence encased the yard, ravaged with tendrils of roses and raspberries gone wild, reaching out to passers by for help, salvation, trees and shrubs overgrown filling all the spaces grass used to be, slender concrete paths lead to the back door end fragmented into shards. It is inaccessible just as she is, barricaded by ivy creeping across the breadth at various tangents, green, woody fingers binding the knob like a python. Aleathia Drehmer 2006