It's Still Life

Nothing Much

A few red bricks from the demolished chimney, and the curve of the driveway is all that’s left to show that a house stood here once, where every December Christmas lights hung in scallops from the iron guttering, blinking on and off all night until one of the neighbours complained that it set off their child’s photosensitive epilepsy.

The owner of the house unplugged the lights, and didn’t turn them back on again after being taken to task about it, but the lights remained hanging there like loose rotting teeth.

This house lived beyond its purpose; that’s what happens when something is left empty. Emptied of arguments and forgiveness, disagreements that still rattle the picture rails, forgiveness that sounds like bedsprings, hurricane-stripped trees that still move in the wind, and voices gone anonymous as a weekend poet. What’s left of this ruin will be someone’s literature rather than someone’s history.

But even a poet has a right to a moment of saying nothing much.

Girlie On The Edge SSS word “task” Six Sentences including the word: task. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2023.