Wiping Window Sills During a Springtime Storm
The houses remind me
of paperback novels with paper thin walls
set on a boulevard shelf,
and there is fondness
for the green garbage bin that guards our yard,
shielded beneath its carapace lid.
my boys are banished out back,
performing pidgeon parodies –
awkward stick legs,
bobbing necks,
poking at worms
drowning in the dirt.
dear husband is dissolved
in TV lethargy
all slack jawed and twitching muscle,
thinning hair
forming octothorpe patches
over a smooth horizon scalp.
fussy neighbour’s twin girls
emerge in designer gumboots
and plastic slickers,
round freckled faces
wrapped in shiny purple hoods –
spoiled little eggplant knockoffs.
and I am washed out, waiting,
left to ponder if others are bootlegging
copies of domestic bliss,
staring into refrigerator lights,
framed in rain-streaked windows,
blurring the edges of vinegar grins.
Jenny Wong is a writer, traveler, and occasional business analyst. She resides in the foothills of Alberta, Canada. Lately, her poems have been more about indoor things, but she still dreams about wandering the streets of Lisbon, diving in public swimming pools, and drinking fresh papaya juice. Recent publications include Atlas & Alice, Whale Road Review, Lost Balloon, Ellipsis Zine and perhappened mag. Tweets @jenwithwords