The Renovation
When I was for sale, on a hot summer Sunday,
she was different from the others, didn’t poke
into corners or shame me by opening closet doors.
Instead, she sat on the sofa and said, “look
how the light comes into this room.”
Truth is, I was a bit down on my luck,
wearing my faded robe and curlers all day,
a two hundred year old damsel in distress.
When she came to me, she peeled off
my dowdy layers of parquet and linoleum
to reveal the rich hued pine on my floors,
stripped away decades of drab wallpaper,
and chalky paint, dressed me in cheerful tints
of sky and buttercup, hung chimes on me
to sway in the breeze, romanced me
with blossoms, and I sparkled again, my dull
garments replaced by becoming gowns,
my arms filled with oil paintings and apples.
True, she was ungrateful at times, railed
at my tepid bath water, leaky faucets
and crooked chimney, cursed the protruding
nails that scraped her toes. I suffered the boots
of workmen who crossed my blushing floors.
My innermost fireplace was laid bare
but soon my hearth warmed her
with a hearty blaze, as she, notebook
in hand, peeled away her layers, to reveal
the inner rooms of her own heart.
**
Published in The Write Place at the Write Time Winter 2013/Spring 2014 issue
When I was for sale, on a hot summer Sunday,
she was different from the others, didn’t poke
into corners or shame me by opening closet doors.
Instead, she sat on the sofa and said, “look
how the light comes into this room.”
Truth is, I was a bit down on my luck,
wearing my faded robe and curlers all day,
a two hundred year old damsel in distress.
When she came to me, she peeled off
my dowdy layers of parquet and linoleum
to reveal the rich hued pine on my floors,
stripped away decades of drab wallpaper,
and chalky paint, dressed me in cheerful tints
of sky and buttercup, hung chimes on me
to sway in the breeze, romanced me
with blossoms, and I sparkled again, my dull
garments replaced by becoming gowns,
my arms filled with oil paintings and apples.
True, she was ungrateful at times, railed
at my tepid bath water, leaky faucets
and crooked chimney, cursed the protruding
nails that scraped her toes. I suffered the boots
of workmen who crossed my blushing floors.
My innermost fireplace was laid bare
but soon my hearth warmed her
with a hearty blaze, as she, notebook
in hand, peeled away her layers, to reveal
the inner rooms of her own heart.
**
Published in The Write Place at the Write Time Winter 2013/Spring 2014 issue