Love In the Time of a Two Year Renovation

For you I would go down to the depths
of our foul basement with the dead mice
and dripping water that may or may not be sewage.

I would dig through the damp, dust covered boxes
for your copper pots, blue ceramic bowls
and stainless steel spatulas.

Although you can find any recipe online
I’d happily herniate my L5 disc carrying
the book-filled crates upstairs so you could

sift through dank covers till you find
your Sicilian lamb, eggplant cacciatore
and ginger cookie recipes.

I’d unearth the plastic tubs tangled in webs,
covered in sawdust and mouse droppings
to find dishes, silverware and wine glasses,

wash it all in the makeshift sink, head back
down to locate the linen and candle sticks.
Good-bye paper plates, plastic forks and cups,

for you babe, I’d scrub the table,
vacuum the wood shavings,
make a setting worthy of your delicacies––

the aroma of rosemary, garlic and just baked cookies
masking the stench of wet paper, rotted flesh
and mold.

*

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poetry has appeared in Peregrine, Gyroscope Review, Zig Zag Lit Mag, New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, The Inquisitive Eater: a journal of The New School, ONE ART and elsewhere. Laurie won first place in poetry at the 2023 Marblehead, MA Festival of the Arts.