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.

The Comments

Join the Conversation. Post with kindness.

  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.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Read More Like This

When God Comes for Tea

When I was eight years old, I loved to read the same books over and over again. “Try this one,” my frustrated librarian would say, pushing forward a copy of…
November 19, 2006

The Couch We Can’t Get Rid Of

My parents bought it in the 80s. It was our first and last foray into the world of sectionals. It had two sections! One was a three-seater, with respectable arm…
July 21, 2009

Choreography: How to Save a Scene from Too Much Interiority

In her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie achieves an ideal to which I aspire: a smart, literary, highly readable love story full of cultural references, history, and vivid, textured characters––just the kind of novel I love to read and want to write. I was particularly impressed with Adichie’s technique in moving her characters around in space, as I have trouble with this. Choreography!!! I scold myself, scrawling the word in red ink in the margins of my drafts. More importantly, because of the way she weaves her character’s growing comprehension into the action of the scene using a skillful interplay of description, movement, dialogue, and interiority, we are riveted to both the inner world and the outer world of our protagonist, Olanna.
March 15, 2024