PROPERTY VALUE
(Pittsburgh, PA)
Sleep is a smooth talking gigolo
promising dreams between sheets
painted with wings,
where I would if I could speak
in some romantic tongue
on waves that lap a distant shore.
Up inside this attic nest loft
beneath the slanted skylight,
alone and indisposed
I am on my back again in bed.
Above across the patch
of wanderlust sky the roof lets in,
birds print vıs against the light
in a chorus of angels
off to somewhere Iıve yet to be.
And I am beginning to see
things I wish werenıt here
in this house from which
dreams are launched.
This house has taken its turn
through the stretch of three years
hard work, primping
before neighborsı eyes, grinning
Impatiens flowering sills
in Sundayıs best, bars dressed up
with hearts crossing window eyes,
fresh paint fooling old mortar
walkway walls, slick roof raft deck
heading out toward constellations
of city stars.
These calloused hands might have
written an epithalamium if not for
the stiff knuckles, the ache
of home improvement digging in
calf and thigh, small of the back,
each sacrifice measured against
some longing: moonlighting
and borrowing the way through
working class ethic from Bottoms
to Flats to the river
of waste breaking through
the foundation wall,
rusted furnace heating grate
rotted in a basement flood,
teetering chimney refusing the flue
where birds won't roost
without warm. Roof work
becomes a writerıs colony
under blue skies in Vermont,
the heat a rose colored canyon
far west, the pipes
a fine arts degree, the deck
a belly full of food, mouthful
of wine in a Prague cafe, a ride
along the Seine in a fast car
with the top down. This house,
stripped bare of rococo and dark,
has been opened up wide
with my own hands like a poem,
tearing down and building up,
moving about the blocks
of black and white, filling the space
with a symphony of voices
struggling for harmony against
a chain saw whir and someone elseıs
noisy shingles slamming the street.
This house eats bank notes,
coughs up dollars and cents,
but poor chatter has it from behind
the candid chain link fence
that property value is rising
in this roost where I should be
pecking poetıs keys but try to sleep
above the news spreading across
the jackhammering sidewalk.
I am afraid this is not my season
for traveling. I couldnıt move
if I wanted to.
Copyright © Andrena Zawinski 2001
Published -
Sistersong:
Women Across Cultures, Vol. 3, No. 2, (Pushcart Prize Nominee)
|