House Like a Wheel (apologies to Anna McGarrigle)

posted November 29, 2011


What if a house were like a wheel?
How would that be any different from the way things are?
Your days would begin level enough
But then as the sun rose, imperceptibly
(Except for that one moment–which
You only catch on the rare days
When you are actually paying
attention–when the blushing dawn
quite suddenly turns the lights on),
as the day goes on
the shift.

Regularly, as you look up,
you notice that you’re turning,
And it’s even quite pleasant at first
Maybe it’s just a gentle rocking,
and the pendulum will swing back the other way.
(Surely it will swing back, won’t it?)

You rest in this denial,
Or rather, you think you are resting,
Until the dishes have crashed to the floor
And the laundry escapes its confines
in the dryer
and is replicating its experience
all over the bedrooms.

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  1. This sculpture has always confused me. At first, I thought it was the wheel of a skateboard or roller skate, that had broken free and was trailing fiber optic wire behind. Never mind that there is no reason a skateboard or roller skate would have fiber optics inside….. Someone finally explained it’s a typewriter eraser, and that made nominally more sense, except what will the next generation think of that explanation? Sigh. Art.

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