April 2022
Bio Note: I am a grant writer and the poet laureate of my city, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, an honor that was bestowed upon me in the summer of 2020. I think being a poet who writes grants (or a grant writer who writes poetry) is a good combination of skills. Both require me to tell a good story in as few well-chosen words as possible. These poems arose out of the pandemic, with so much time spent contemplating my house.
Interior Renovation
My heart holds rooms, crowded
with the furniture of old loves.
Mismatched chairs gather
in the kitchen’s gloom
and a couch with sagging springs
sports its original plastic.
Time to clean out the pie safe
and stereo cabinet.
The mahogany buffet waits
for the party to start.
Wing-backed chairs ponder themselves
and lamps with dangling crystals
grace the end tables. Everywhere,
beauty is waiting to happen.
I see now, I must act the host.
Restyle my heart, restore my soul.
Make space for new loves, new art
to decorate this singular domain.
The New House Reveals Itself
Winter rain on icy ground
and nothing prepared me
for pools of water everywhere,
my basement floor buckling.
What kind of membrane
am I living in? Permeable,
it seems. Drain tile, the veins
and sump pump, the heart
said the weatherproofing man.
I did not know that a house
had a heart. I search daily
to find what muscle it is
that pumps life through
this structure that holds
my edges secure. Windows
for eyes, rooms for dreaming.
The kitchen, a fire in my belly,
the place where ideas are born.
Then comes a day in spring,
when tulips push through,
tulips planted by hands not mine.
I see a woman on her knees
in the grass, burying beauty
for some ingrate of the future.
But, no, I will not be that.
For, there, just there, I see it.
Tender tips of salmon red,
flamed with strokes of yellow.
The heart of the house,
making itself known to me.
Keeping House
I never really knew my house
until I lived inside all day, every day.
What used to be a rushing
to get to the next shiny place
has become a marathon of solitude
as I wait for bread to rise.
My heart beats in sync
with the ice maker in my fridge,
the sump pump in my basement,
and the ceiling fan above my head.
My bookshelves are sagging
under the weight of pending knowledge.
I have learned to measure time
by the angle of light on the floor.
How is it that once upon a time,
I ran around town, scattered
and maskless, breathing in
what everyone else breathed out?
Now, I sit in stillness, grateful
to earn my living from home,
privy to the persistence of mildew
and the advice of the air conditioner.
I have come to know doorknobs
and breadcrumbs, dead leaves fallen
from my house plants, and all
the maligned secrets of dust bunnies.
Sympathetic to the tea kettle’s sorrow,
I bear witness to the confessions of my carpet.
I am not a better housekeeper,
just a better house knower.
©2022 Lisa Vihos
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