Marilyn Donovan
The Holiday Let
I lie in bed lazy from sleep.
The house enfolds me.
Downstairs you move round
making coffee, its brown aroma
curling up the stairs.
The bell of St François de Sales tolls mass,
the sound rolling across the town
and washing against my shuttered window.
When we go home this place is taken
by a man who plays the violin.
He will stand in the hall and draw his bow
across the strings serenading
his wife in her bath two floors above.
The plaintive notes, tentative at first,
will twine insinuating up.
As he warms they will swell
till the noise fills every room,
pressing into the pores of plaster and brick.
When we return next year
the house will give back
the music's resonance,
so faint it will barely stir the air.
The house enfolds me.
Downstairs you move round
making coffee, its brown aroma
curling up the stairs.
The bell of St François de Sales tolls mass,
the sound rolling across the town
and washing against my shuttered window.
When we go home this place is taken
by a man who plays the violin.
He will stand in the hall and draw his bow
across the strings serenading
his wife in her bath two floors above.
The plaintive notes, tentative at first,
will twine insinuating up.
As he warms they will swell
till the noise fills every room,
pressing into the pores of plaster and brick.
When we return next year
the house will give back
the music's resonance,
so faint it will barely stir the air.
Page(s) 18
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