14
I go alone with the real estate agent to look
at the old white house. When we pull up
in front I ask if the whole thing is tipping
or if it is only my poor eyes. It leans to the left,
she says, but then so do I. The ice in the cup
in the car door rattles when I slam it shut.
In New Orleans in autumn there are hardly any
leaves to fall but the groundcover in back
is patched and dying. A cat rests on the lower
rungs of a fire escape when we go inside but is gone
by the time we have checklisted the floorboards,
the original tile on the fireplaces, the pocket doors
sealed open by careless coats and coats of paint.
The front door faces riverward and above it
the balcony tilts with the house: precarious, eaved
and reminding me all along of New England.
I will turn this into a widow’s walk, I tell her.
I will marry a river-captain and pace and wave
over the tops of the heads of the town when he is gone,
my hands flying as far as the river and beyond.
tougher market
after The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
Alexandra Reisner