House Portrait, Interior

The porch is walled in coats and boots. Dry mud drifts into corners.

Paint flakes off in the bathroom's dampest points. New paint is bought, the tin is under the hand towel pile. Someone has written algebraic formulas on the mirror.

The kitchen is ridiculous but it works: as long as we resign ourselves to be always shifting five-gallon tubs of blipping wine. The cupboards are lined with jam. The rumtopf crock is rinsed of dust and filled: squats waiting for the winter dark on the top of a cobwebby cupboard.

In the front room two dogs blame each other for that smell. Things gather in boxes waiting for inspiration, for the extra push.

Up the pleasantly precarious stairs some sweeping is due.

Boy makes a strike against chaos, reports to have found some floor space. His door is shut, he shuffles out, sidles the findings: covert cleaning.

In the office the walls are closing in, in lines of shelves. Two lap top screens are shining, twenty fingers are typing, in between the tuttings that signify choices and befuddlement (which word and how to spell it?)

The larger of the bedrooms has no pictures hung. Blank space is a luxury; a cream canvas for painting dreams.