Hidden Habits

The stickers are coming tomorrow at ten,

to mark up the sofa and chairs.

The men with the clipboards and blue-inked pen

are already climbing the stairs.

I lifted the doily she kept on the arm,

a shield for the things we don't say.

Beneath the white lace was a small, quiet harm

she managed to hide every day.

A charred, black-rimmed crater in velvet of red,

where the cherry had bitten the pile.

The saint of the kitchen, the soft-spoken head,

had been smoking and hating her style.