Improvements

While you are not here, I improve
the house. I hang pictures, I fix
the creaky door's creak, I manage
to install a garbage disposal. Our bed: new sheets.
The living room: new lamps, a series of
shadowboxes which hold many
meaningful photographs featuring people
who love us and are loved. The upstairs
bathroom: shelves and a mirror,
which reflects my harried hair
and my lonely eyes. I cut the lawn, I weed
the garden, I plant ten begonias down
the side of the house. I pull up the carpet
in the basement. On Friday
I move all the furniture around,
in the hopes that it will stop reminding me
that you are not here to use it.

You will not recognise things when
you return, you will be amazed, you will
see with new eyes all the places
you took for granted and realise how much
you missed them, how beautiful they are
now, how much you want to know them
again. You will love it.