2016Bluestone

There was carpet of course, A deep muddy brown. Practical: it hid the dirt. We were permitted to play behind the couch dividing the living room. If you put a ball on one side of that room

It would roll to the other, toward the television: Square-shouldered goalie guarding the garage. Although Florida is flat, everything went downhill. I hid my child-size chair in my closet, Blocking the door with my kinderklavier. The harvest gold vinyl would stick to my rear. My little chair had been a rocker, my but Dad Had sawed off the semi-circular runners Primitive, wordless. My brother hid too: His Rainbow Brite pillowcase under the bed, His dolls in my room. Later, there were posters of women on his walls. But when Dad left He took the wine-rack with him. We bought yards of Liberty fabric on sale. We re-covered the chairs, Replaced stripes with florals and draperies with valences. I tied ribbons to everything, And glue-gunned silk flowers to Switch plates, lamps, picture frames. We bought a Chihuahua and beribboned her too. There were throw pillows now: Pink, peach, and peony. Rose trellises climbed the Waverly wallpaper. Blooms from manure. So as not to scar the walls. My own legs would rock To the rhythm inside me,

K. Irene Rieger is an English professor, fashion historian, and free- lance writer whose award-winning work has been published in Talking Writing, The College English Association Critic, and the Jour- nal for the Liberal Arts and Sciences. 77