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Song with Shag Rug and Wood Paneling

My parents renovated that old home.
It is clean as a lobotomy.

The cracked linoleum’s erased.
Now new hardwood floors are gleaming.

Gone are gold shag rugs, the shade
of California August

on which I lay beneath the dustmotes
studying the drift of genome, species, phyla.

Gone is the cracked pink bathroom tile,
vanity of some 1940s bride;

gone the shameful faux wood paneling,
dark embarrassment of my teenage years.

They’ve added a backdoor to the kitchen
where night after night I fought with my mother—

& I, who spent a decade sending hatred
towards a glittering asbestos ceiling,

have only a distant dump to hate,
& the settling of old carcinogens:

My ancient vehemence is confounded
by a brightly lit new silence,

emptiness beneath the open vaulting.