Home Repair
By Ace Boggess
October 15, 2022
October 15, 2022
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I have trouble finding the word ‘condensation’
in a lifetime’s language of memory. The handyman regards me like a puzzling math equation. Two painters on ladders coat the trim around a rotting roof. I’m mesmerized by insertion of beauty into ruin. I find flaws in everything, but keep them to myself. Trick knee, bad back, septum with a hole in it-- all petition for redress of grievances. Brain bothers me, slogging along in mud & fog as though I’ve been struck in the head with a rock. My mind blanks again on ‘insulation.’ Aging catches up in a way that caulk or a coat of paint won’t fix. |
Ace Boggess is the author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.