Renovations

RENOVATIONS

"What do you think?" I ask him

as we size each other and "what seems

to be the problem." It's one till now we’ve

lived with, but that's no way to live

as my wife says.

                      It looms, a three-inch cliff

to climb into the kitchen, tall enough

to trip up even the familiar 

on a midnight pilgrimage to water. 

I may not know the fix, which

is why he’s here, but at least

as a believer in God I know

how such canyons form, the slow

accumulation of sediment.

         It starts  

with something pure at base: hard-

wood, say. 

   Then one of us decides

it needs to keep up with the times

and overlays a loud design 

of laminate.

      When the times 

are no longer the times, someone else 

moves in and tries to update the space 

to fit the times again, something 

that says yep, we’re cutting

edge here, cutting an edge to trip

a stranger’s children who will inherit 

the house we’ve built. On and on.

                      

The contractor says there is one

fix.

       It will be slow work, the return 

down to the original,

                     timeless and firm.