Renovation
by Anitha Ahmed
I come home in the evening
to wooden floors in the living room,
in the kitchen, to wooden stairs.
Gone are the chai-stained carpets,
gone those invisible layers of dust and hair
gathering in corners of carpet no vacuum
Would reach. “Wood is easy to clean,”
my father says. But the wood is hard and cold
against our heads during the night prayer.
The wood carries voices to my bedroom—
sharp syllables and slammed cupboards,
I hear every word un-insulated.
I stare at a book, the way I did at ten in the backseat
when my mother cried over the guardrail,
And my father glared through the windshield
into the wooded mountains ahead. Floor mats
rubbed layers of tension on my soles,
and we sat the ride home in silence.
In the morning, my father sweeps dust
from the wood, sprays over it a layer
of lacquer. My mother opens the blinds.
“Look how the wood shines
in the sunlight,” she says, “Look how clean.”
My parents smile at each other again.
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