Page 32 - Vol V. #8

Although You’ve Never Asked
Although you’ve never asked, I know you want to hear about my house,
how its slim gilded birds trace their migratory way across the ceiling
if you chance to glance up, how the elaborate, spindled staircase cascades
and ascends and bends
at the landing where
library steps climb skyward, how the rondels of stained glass in the sun room fit snugly
in the casement windows, leaded like some storied castle keep, how the floors are strewn with paper, I mean to say,
there are papers waist-deep
on the carpets and counters,
in corridors and cul-de-sacs, papers stacked on the piano
and the adjacent settee.
This is a house composed
of paper and stucco and oak,
a house held together by
sloping doors and hope,
by climbing vines and desire adorning the supporting walls. This is the very house in which
I loved you in all its
meaningless constructions
and permutations,
its leaky roof and add-ons.
It’s too late to improve
and out of the question to move. This is where I live
and where I’ll die.
And I could tell you more,
if only you’d ask.
23
anSie Baird