The Colors of my Grandmother’s House
My grandmother’s house was white, indifferent
to the fading sun, and cool against the greens
planted by her husband. Grandfather dug, plucked
and puttered all day between the small white cube
and its aprons of lawn and garden.
One weekend, he painted it pink. The whole house
pink to beat flamingo pink. I’ll never know
if that was some code they kept between them:
if grandfather was paying penance in each stroke
of pink over the increasingly brittle siding.
Perhaps each stroke of pink whispered
their kink: that she would blatantly bloom
year-round in Pepto Bismol pastel, a sort of
Sherwyn Williams exhibitionist. Perhaps the vinyl
siding later, mint green, was for grandfather
when he slid into senselessness. It was the color
of his favorite ice cream. The color of his first car
which, like his marriage, had seemed too small
for his long legs. The green house said to him
I forgive you and this is where you live.
Debra Rymer is better known as Ms. Rymer, a public school teacher in New York City. She has had poems and essays appear in modest zines, newspapers and anthologies. Her poetry has matured over decades of practice, fired by sobriety to a voice of glass.