The Pattern

The dishes can sit in the grease for a day

while I find a new reason for looking away.

The rings on the curtain have turned a sick gold,

brittle and cracked from the steam and the cold.

The fern in the center is losing its green,

peeled by the heat of the water and screen.

It’s a gap in the forest, a hole in the blue,

like a part of the house that is finally through.