After all this
time, it should not have been a surprise;
it was, after
all, unlivable.
Parts of the
roof had given up any pretense
of shelter, and
the world before the house
was beginning
to show through. Still,
I could not
have imagined that thirty years
of life would
endure so poorly, that ghosts
would already
stare from empty sockets
and every wall
breathe with every wind
like some
discarded Kenmore box, both ends broken
through.
And now it was
coming down.
When I’d heard,
I expected the gothic, towering crane,
that it would
take some apocalyptic wrecking ball
to make such an
end, this vivisection and monocide.
Reality made do
with one yellow bulldozer—
looking
especially bright now that morning was here
and it could in
earnest begin the few swipes
from front lawn
to back, dismembering perennials
lying in
riotous beds beneath each southern window—
and a
rust-pocked truck to haul it off.
Before noon,
the other men unpacked sandwiches by the truck
and stomped the
dust from their boots; good enough men,
they spoke in
quiet monotone—seeing me
picking through
limp strands of re-bar, mock oak
paneling,
porcelain shards—of the Dodgers, perhaps, or women
they had known,
the sleeker condos that would start here
then snake
along the wood’s edge as far as the river.
The elms seemed
larger now with no house for comparison;
what sun came
through played tricks with these open rooms
where shadows
danced like half-remembered dreams.
Near the old
fireplace site the glint of glass
was only a
piece of photograph frame that cut my hand
neatly across
the palm. It would bleed until I sucked
it clean.
(BYU Studies, 1993)
Yeah!!
ReplyDelete