Spring 2019, Volume 26

Poetry by Michael Meyerhofer

The Workman

Strangers with spray paint arrive
and start dressing the windows

in plastic sheeting. Then the doors. One
fetches a ladder. Before long,

they're busy repainting the house
with me trapped inside it.

I didn't know they were coming—
maybe the notice got lost in the mail—

but I can hear them speaking
Spanish across the oxblood eaves,

passing time, swapping stories
of women and fights and so-and-so's

newborn with wide dark eyes. 
Then, through a crack in the door,

I notice my own black sedan 
wrapped in the same plastic sheeting

like a body off a TV show
or a present they'll open for me

once they've packed up their gear
and moved on, leaving behind

immaculate white walls
and a rooftop the color of fire.

 

 

BIO: Michael Meyerhofer’s fifth book, Ragged Eden, is forthcoming from Glass Lyre Press. He is also the author of a fantasy series and the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. His work has appeared in Hayden's Ferry, Rattle, Brevity, Tupelo Quarterly, Ploughshares, and many other journals. For more information and an embarrassing childhood photo, visit www.troublewithhammers.com.