2008/different

Life is different
here,
I hear cars,
nestled in the
living room
with the door closed.
Feeling sheltered
and safe.
Will I later feel
enclosed?
I don’t know.
The kind of house
Frank Lloyd Wright
protested against,
little rooms
with doors.
I like them myself.
After a decade
in a house with
only one door,
I’ve come to respect
what a door can
do.
Privacy. Separation.
Solitude.
Cozy spaces
that I can
name, “the lady’s
writing room,”
the cubby, which
was the butler’s
pantry we think,
his Fibber McGee
closet beneath
the stairs – my
friend calls it
that.
And the parlor,
as he insists on
calling the living
room, where we
huddled and cuddled
through winter,
a bit bare and spare,
but safe.

4/10/08