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.”