The truth is I am tired of poetry
and the pathology of its need to altar a scene.
Anthony Lawrence
After dusting and with a quick update (these kids are growing up, goddamn) the photos in our lounge area have been returned to the wall. I’m sitting at the dining table before them now, tilting my head, checking they’re level, all the while knowing they’ll be outdated again just as soon as the 2011 school pictures come back.
As I waved the bristle-brush Dyson attachment over their frames and glass earlier, I stopped and choked at the picture of dad (second from the right, blue shirt in the middle). It’s a rare photo of him goofing off. It’s the reason I have it up there instead of any number of possible alternatives.
The rest of the furniture is still in the garage or in various nooks about the house which are dragging out to be more than temporary. In the emptiness of the room, it’s echoing timber, the spaces abound. In truth it reminds me of an exhibition space: for the moment, we are both subject and exhibitors. It is separate from the other half of our home, cluttered, full of familial smells.
Keira shares my feelings of appreciation for the austerity, the ‘look’.
“It’s too cramped,” she complained when we brought in our dining table and chairs. “I like it more empty. Now there’s stuff you have to walk around.”
We are the cast of the play showing in the house we are (re)claiming as our own. I have no words to turn that into poetry at the moment. The day-in-day-out march leaves me crying for rest. It leaves me crying happy, too.
Because it’s starting to look like what I always wanted.
