Sunday, September 4, 2011

Widow's House


We bought the house in February,
Allowed it to hibernate until May,
And then we began our assault.

We stripped the house of silly relics:
Turquoise carpet and pink toilet,
Big blue sink, plastic chandelier,
Five layers of floral wallpaper –
One for each decade she had loved her home –
Even her hedge of holly bushes had to go.

Our coarse hands pulled at her delicate ruffled curtains;
With glee we threw each remaining piece of her life into the dumpster
To make space for ours.
And when I discarded the last piece of pink tile, I paused,
And wondered if she’d have cried to see

The kitchen where she’d made her famous pork chops,
The big blue tub where she’d drawn bubble baths for her only child, a boy,
The hearth her husband had designed himself,
All supplanted by our notions of modern superiority.
I sighed in recognition that one day our revisions, too,
Would need “remodeling.”

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