Spring Cleaned (reopening after renovations)

Re-opening after renovations

It breaks my heart to tell you that I’ve finally turned my back

Dust-busted the carpet and rolled it up again and stacked

The guest towels, faintly jaundiced by time, with the soaps of

Little heart shaped welcome – so broken

When I laid them out. Thinking, knowing, that you would come back.

And now I slide closed this door, the one I promised would be left open

For your return from the misty bog outside, always hoping

That you’d shrug your way back in. Yes, your intention was clear:

Nothing more than a “Fuck you and die” that reverberated for years.

And I didn’t lie to you – I was going to leave it open.

Yet when the mist here cleared and the mire dried out

The comet of your arrival carried unexpected doubt

That shone on dirty windows that had long obscured my view –  

So it breaks my heart to tell you that I’ve decided not to

Turn the dwelling of my being, once more, inside out.

I gave a home to things not my business to lodge, or

Rather, slaved in the kitchen trying to conjure

Miracles from my own housekeeping; now, l draw the curtains at last

Whose layered fabric shows the moth-holes of 6 winters past

And there’s no complaint you can lodge.

So if you’d please just do the same, and draw the cord on it. I’m sorry.

I’ll promise now to miss you always. I’m not sorry.

For as the dust settles, the photos on the wall illuminate no regret

And the warmth in my house, in tiny bubbles, rises yet

On a new morning, as I remember. Everything. And I’m not sorry.