The Extra Room

a brakish room
deep in a damp cellar
a dark, dank place on
the southwest corner
meant to hold nothing
sacred or memorable

i remember you put in
boxes of your train track
dozens of cars and
road signs and rail ties
buildings of painted wood
you made yourself and
your little men in
construction caps
courtesy of legoland
things to make towns
spring to life as
trains barrel past
their little smoke stacks
steaming for a few seconds
because you never figured out
how to make it last

but those boxes became
moldy after months
in that room and
you had to make a new
place in the attic
for there your toys would
rest unspoiled and dry
and the colors would
stay bright and irrefutible

but now you think about
how to rescue us from
this economic downturn
how we might still
get to europe every year
because you know
i live for that
for baguettes and brasseries
and old chanson
resting on my tongue
and all the words that come
like poems in the morning
and how you are happiest
when i'm at peace with myself
and how i'm never happy
when i'm back in the states

and you turn back to
that dull, dank room in
the emptied-out basement
where you are now
storing your parents' piano
against my better advice
and you think out loud,
i bet someone
could love that room
if i put in a bathroom
on the other side
of the wall and
installed hot water
it has its own entrance
afterall and no
rain gets in no matter
how hard it pours...

but what about food?
i ask in a reprimanding
tone that you pick up on

well, there could be a
hot plate and small
fridge of course

and i think about
that corner right beneath
my living space, right
under my floor boards
and i ask you,
but what kind of person
would want to live in
someone's ugly basement
in the dew and the damp?

and you answer,
oh it's not as bad as that
the room could be nice
with a new rug and
curtains, a bit of paint
and plywood shelves
some landscape painting
in the middle of the wall
and the bright windows

and i picture your
poor forgotten toys
tossed in their
stinky boxes and
definitively tell you,
whoever it would be
i don't think i'd
want to know him

and you demand,
not even for 500
bucks a month?

and i roll my eyes
and answer, he'd
get an apartment
for that!

and then the silence
between us grows and
there are mushrooms
and strings of pearls
and ancient visions
behind closed eyelids
and an empty room
without promise