New Chandelier

There’s a new chandelier hanging in my living room.

We installed her today.

She’s beautiful.

I hung her with A, while M cooked our dinner.

We sat on my balcony—newly refurbished.

Mad brought her new boy around—

he’s nice.

The truth is,

when you’re not lookin’ for it,

life moves on,

doesn’t it?

You know what I realized tonight?

I’m not pretending anymore.

I don’t cross the threshold of this home and feel like I’m walkin’ into a ghost house.

There are no specters here.

No need to call the exorcist,

or pray for peace.

Peace lives here in this condo now.

I look up at the new chandelier—“sputnik shape,” that’s what they call her.

I don’t know a thing about that part of history.

Russians and the space war.

I also don’t know all that much about design.

I just like what I like.

(Most of the time that’s with momma’s approval, infuriating though that is—)

Sometimes it feels like I don’t know much about much—

But what I do know is this—

I know tonight I danced.

To Heart, and Bennie and the Jetts, and to:

“Well I’m runnin’ down the road tryin’ to loosen my load—”

chuckle.

Who isn’t tryin’ to do that, huh?

What I like about this new chandelier—

This lighting feature that now hangs in the living room of a home that was once for two—

She catches the light.

That’s obviously a selling piece.

Isn’t that a wonderful thing to sell?

Wouldn’t we all like to be known like that?

He catches the light.