was coral, frilly-laced with matching
bedspread and curtains Grandma long ago sewed
from a Butterick pattern and filmy chiffon fabric.
Up the stairs and to the right, past the Plant Room
where once my Aunties slept, covered then in Boston Ferns,
African violets in earthenware pots, and cool green paint,
Nobody complains
about the rendering
of an elm limb.
They like to study
the outstretched arm, the
bark, worn and past-elegant.
He looks lost within
his drippy blue windbreaker.
Spring Saturday, and not everything used
gets a second lease. A new life,
tender pale circle where the ring once was.
MELANIE FAITH is a graduate student in the Queens University of Charlotte, N.C. Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program and works as a tutor at a college preparatory high school. Her poems have been published in more than sixty literary journals since her 1999 graduation from Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA (U.S.).