POETRY
Gold Medallion Home: Live Better Electrically
Amanda Frechin
The house sits low to the ground like a bunker, dark red bricks.
The wind can beat with its fists like a drum: the house will not care.
The yard creeps up with its long fingers of grass, its spiky plants: the house does not care.
The walls inside have taken beatings. Doors knocked off hinges, beaten down, slammed.
The paintings are hung on nails driven deep, mold making itself comfortable in hidden places.
The pockmarks of rage and age are under the makeup of plaster, the walls still stand.
The rooms have been repurposed. Laundry is suspended on lines where tables should have set.
The master bedroom belongs to cast-offs now, and animals sit in the windows, tails twitching.
The back room is kitsch and collection, mattress on the floor, unlit patron Saints keeping watch.
The people inhabiting have lived and died, or lived and tried to die.
The people have screamed and trashed, and gone about the business of cleaning up.
The bills have gone delinquent and they have been paid.
The house knows all of the things people would keep under wraps.
The people know the foundations are cracked, the ceilings are warped.
The people know time is passing.
The house does not care.
