“Neglect” by Pam Gibbs

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Neglect
or the house I’ll never own

The rag rug softened the rough-cut floors
the trim-work sadly gapped over the drywall–
the plaster and lathe a shadow memory
hammered from the walls in a remodel gone wild.

The banister had beckoned fingers to slide
it’s fine expanse, built by a businesswoman
whose sensibilities had been outraged
by the wired holes drilled in every wall.

The window glass rippled the garden view,
masses of lilies and roses and peonies,
lush at the end of a warm wet spring,
crowded at the next-door bed and breakfast wall.

Having met it’s blooming obligation,
the wisteria gnarled around the lattice,
thick as the volunteer walnut trees
that smelled of rot under the gutterless eaves.

So impractical to consider a purchase–
the price was wrong, the inspection was right,
the poems that appeared in the mottled shadow,
red with the stained glass, never came back.

-Pam Gibbs

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