Renovations

Shane Murphy

So love is lacey
decals strewn about an empty home,

ten years restoring light fixtures,
chipped tiles, hardwood headboards

split in two, pantry doors greased, heaved
open, hinges bent and stuck with square screws,

splattered eggshell white,
and Yes,

the truth is, in spite
of our handiwork, we fall daily

through these floors.

Shane Murphy is a native of the Northern Adirondacks in New York and a first-year student in the MFA program at The Ohio State University.

“My grandparents’ house had two screened-in porches. In the wide-open lawn behind the house, dandelions colored my whole young world there in summer: that chalky yellow that stains jeans and fingertips. My grandpa would sit in a chair on the back porch, too feeble then to take part in the dandelion-harvest, a paper bag between his legs as he knifed away the dandelion-stems and filled the bag with flowers. The first of many days in the elaboration of his Dan D. Lyon–or Dandy Lion–wine.”