"Repainting the House" by Angela Narciso Torres

Repainting the House

All day, from every wall, the sound of scraping.
Painters on ladders strip the chipped white
siding on this old house. There’s no escaping
orbit-sander, rasp, and putty knife.
Their tools, like locusts, peel the tattered layers
that drift like early snow, the wood’s deep
grain exposed. Autumn chills the air,
they rush to fill the cracks before rain seeps
and soaks good cedar into rot. Inside, I turn
the radio on. Some tune about regret.
A line brings back the time I learned
you loved her. How the heart forgets.
At dusk, through white-flecked grass I draw the rake —
cicada husks beneath the fallen flakes.

Angela Narciso Torres

Angela Narciso Torres’s poetry collection Blood Orange, won the Willow Books Literature Award. Recent work appears in Nimrod, Spoon River Poetry Review, Jet Fuel Review, and Water~Stone Review. A graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA Program, Angela has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Illinois Arts Council, and Ragdale Foundation. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Manila, she serves as a poetry editor for RHINO and a reader for New England Review. www.angelanarcisotorres.com

Photo Credit: Staff