Image by Jenna Mann

 

Mr. Pither’s House

Poem by Jennifer Irvine

Wizened red cedar siding fades

into neighbourhood at the end of my laneway

as subtle as a home after a house-wrecking party.

I walk through decades of tiny moments with

my eye only on his basement window

trying to catch a glimpse of my reflection

from the waist down

 

Brown curtains his wife would have cleaned

(had she been alive) drawn like the flowerless garden below

on every window save for a slit exposing

a barley tweed lampshade tilted

towards his wheat plaid La-Z- Boy.

 

Blue flannel shirt bulks

the spindly frame of an old lumberman.

Outline of wire-framed glasses

peer over raddled face reading a book.

I assess my jeans in the makeshift mirror,

reflection borrowed from his basement window.

Not willing to return it like a good neighbour.