Wallpaper Dreams: A Poem

 

Wallpaper Dreams

 

poem by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

 

 

Between Clinton,  Indiana’s Mulberry Cafe

and the Rockville Packing Company building

was the Smith-Alsop Paint Store,

where,

when my dad was buying paint and/or brushes,

I thumbed through twenty-by-twenty-four-inch books

of wallpaper samples

in floral and geometric designs,

textured in various ways

to initiate

interior design dreams.

 

Five decades later,

I, once again

in the midst of wallpaper dreams,

wonder if I should wallpaper

one wall, one room,

or the small bathroom

with the poems

of my retirement years.

 

Surely, online, I should

be able to find

a “design-your-own-wallpaper” company

to whom I can send my poems.

Then, the company will send me

rolls of my poetry

so that someone with a straight-line concept

can decoratively paper my walls–

well, the walls of my small, mid-level bathroom

where house guests will be face-to-face

with my pasted poems–

flush against left margin,

sprinkled with coordinating art.

Guest readers will see

that these poems mirror my life:

as the house guests peer into the bathroom mirror,

more reflections of poetic creations

rush into view–

an usual  way to read the poems on the back wall.

 

Have I gone too far

with these wallpaper dreams?

You think the better placement

of my poems

is in a traditional book?

 

Later, Leader Dog Willow recommends

photos of herself

for the design-your-own-wallpaper company.

Well, I do already have

towels with a Black-Lab motif.

 

We will creatively compromise:

two walls of poetry

and two walls of Willow,

who will transfer better in mirror image.

 

Celebrating 68 years,

I happily and artistically

surmise an overview

of my dream-fresh life

in wallpapered

paws and poetry.

 

NOTE #1:  I wrote this 267-word poem on July 19, 2018, Thursday, to share at a critique session with our group of five writers who have now participated in a monthly critique session for more than two years.  Besides Wisconsin, the poetic homes of fellow writers are in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Wyoming.

 

NOTE #2:  Thanks to cousins Carole and Donald for  bringing back to mind the name of the “Rockville Packing Company” building, which I used in the first stanza of this poem.

 

Enjoy the poetic September days!

Alice and Leader Dog Willow

 

September 12, 2018, Wednesday

 

Advertisement