House (December)

December, when my Jaroslav Seifert opens by chance on “only the river doesn’t age.” People we never saw sell their houses in the neighbourhood. Suppose they went to live in care, let’s suppose. Timber structures and cream brick foundations are dismantled in a week. Sentiment is all we see, their lives lived in the sun where “only the river doesn’t age.” Clearance levels their block to a rubble field. Suppose someone died and the family made arrangements, let’s suppose. In a month it will be blocked and babeled in the grand new beige style. Not much garden to speak of.