Little Fixer-Upper
Dec 3 2007


I’m a flim-flam man,
a scamp,
a shenanigan.
I live as I can
in a crooked house on a crammed-in street,
with a ramshackle yard all overgrown
by wild flowers
and woolly weeds.

Where flimsy doors stick
off-kilter on stiff brass hinges;
and wooden floors creak
cut from dark old mahogany;
and the loose change that spills from my pockets
rolls unstoppably into the same cockeyed corner,
where it glitters in a mound of silver and gold.

The water comes out cloudy,
in frantic gurgles
and great hiccups of spray,
while copper pipes thump and rattle.
The ancient furnace clatters
sucking-up coal by the tractor-full,
as hot air blows dust-balls clear across the place.

The roof is steeply raked
all broken slate,
topped by a rickety chimney
a pinch of wind could tip.
The cladding is jaundiced brick
crumbling,
and the window panes are peeling paint
with glass so old it waves.

Not quite the little old lady who lives in a shoe;
more, the little old lady unlaced.