VA Smith: Those Strong Bones

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

House Aria

after Sharon Olds

Oh!  How I have loved houses more than husbands, 

coveted and owned them with working-class

pride wedding West Elm design.

The arts and crafts Dutch Colonial, 

a Philly historic row home, 

those strong bones holding a walled terrace

where once stood a carriage house.

Or the neo-Gothic restoration when,

stepping from the shower

to a roof deck and outdoor kitchen

come evening, lifts me with the swifts,

swooping into the clouds.

Men’s marriage vows meld together,

soon gone, one husband losing libido fast,

another slipping fidelity’s collar with internet sex, 

their workouts and pledges giving way to

paunches, to snoring, to their gray Februaries

of habit, their lust for the lissome,

the secret, the other. But how houses hold

their promise for decades! The dust and dirt 

of demo filling our mouths, the worst price paid

for an 1800 basement reborn as “finished,” 

pastel walls and dehumidified floor tile

dotted  with weights, a sectional,

and a big screen. Witness that, indeed, 

my house loves have stood steady, welcomed

my yearnings, yielded earth soft with rain

so that pulling pachysandra, invasive deadnettle, 

and creeping myrtle seems kind, transformative

yet perennial, the muddy ground given

over to flagstone, beds thick with soft lavender,

domed night lights and the blowsy bending

of pink Cosmos. I have searched for this beauty,

these cycles of renewal in marriage. 

I have longed to replace the tired with the true,

imagine still the grays, whites and blues 

of our attic sky suite a Sistine Ceiling, calling my

husband and me, after the fall, to our restoration.

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VA Smith lives, reads and writes, walks and bikes, bakes and cooks, and loves on friends, family and her dog in Philadelphia. City life suits her, though she grew up in a small town and loves the ocean, woods and mountains. Her work reflects this.