Nellie's House at Night

In Nellie’s House at Night Rowe reveals her illness: a frightening white doglike animal sitting in front of a tombstone beside her house. The house is empty but is lighted inside. There is a slight presence of life–small flowering plants bloom in the window; floral designs flank double doors (passageways into and out of life). The roof is blue, a color used throughout the South in African American homes to ward off evil spirits. Rowe depicts herself as a brown pig. Here it seems to float upward, ascending to the green pastures, eyeing the comfort of heaven’s abundant fruit trees and protective branches.