Frances Klein

What Remains

after Han Vanderhart

Not the bowling alley. Not Videl Video.
Not the Five & Dime, back wall lined with aquariums,

goldfish and guppies who ignore the children
nose-pressed to glass, float under fluorescents

like indifferent angels. Not the pulp mill
or the logging trucks, not the red tram climbing

the mountainside to scan the channel
from on high. Have I brought you to a town

or an archive, shuttered storefronts
sacrificed on the altar of cruise-kitsch?

Have I given you a home or a blank page
on which to write a list of what remains:

preschool, playground zipline, plant nursery
along the highway where the new sprouts

stretch toward misted greenhouse glass,
uninterested in the history of the soil.

Frances Klein (she/her) (Social Media: @fklein907) is an Alaskan poet and teacher. Klein is the author of several poetry chapbooks, including (Text) Messages from The Angel Gabriel (Gnashing Teeth Press, 2024). Her full length collection, Another Life, was published by Riot in Your Throat Press in 2025. Klein’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Best Microfictions, The London Magazine, Rattle, The Harvard Advocate, HAD, and others.