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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
So as not to scar the walls.
My own legs would rock
To the rhythm inside me,
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.
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.
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