Gustav Klimt's The Virgin...

we'll have to do something about the title.

OLD HOUSE

"Good-bye, old house."

I walked through the empty rooms

scouring for missing items, 

double checking closets and corners,

reminiscing.

Eighty percent of me 

unimaginably thrilled to flee 

what had become a hovel;

We jokingly asked,

"Where does the Lorax sleep?"

Twenty percent becoming contemplative...

One interesting year in that old duplex, 

where I could hear the residents below 

yawn and stretch when they awoke,

where I painted the cabinets, replaced each knob, 

bought ten different kinds of curtains, 

a new couch, a new bed.

"You failed in your mission, old house.

You were supposed to be

my stepping stone

into a life of independence.

Instead, you became a nuisance, 

an embarrassment."

As I swept my hands across the

top shelf of my bedroom closet,

a photograph tailspun to the floor.

I flipped it over to find Brenner's profile.

"Interesting...was it a deliberate dilapidation, old house?"

"Time to go!" Brenner yelled from downstairs.

I walked to the living room and 

placed the key on the mantelpiece

"Thank you, old house. Point taken."

One song...

and I was swept away

the present suspended

like dust in sunlight's rays

To many moons back...

a Saturday, cleaning day

loud pop music was allowed

as it prodded us to sweep swiftly,

scrub quickly,

fold, load, polish.

My fat wooden broomstick, my microphone

A morning of chores to complete,

yet we danced and giggled

This same song

over the loud speaker

as I drop frozen entrees

into my shopping cart

the clank, clank, clank of each...

shakes off the fugue