Ruts: A Poem by Mark Wright (copyright 2011)

 Ruts

I never sit in the old rocking chair

in the corner of my master bedroom.

The wooden seat (where I’m told Mom rocked me as a baby)

is rigid and painted a semi-glossy black.

The back support is composed of narrow spindles

like the spokes of a wheel that won’t turn.

The rails have dug

semi-permanent ruts

into the mauve carpet.

And the chair gives off something

of a moldy musk on rainy mornings

when the damp air seeps in from around the patio door.

I do find the rocker is a suitable place

for stacking laundry.

I pull clean clothes from the dryer and toss them

on the rocking chair.

I wait until it’s piled high before I decide

it’s time to fold the heap of clothes.

When the floor gets cluttered,

I often set a magazine, playbill or football program

on the chair

for a short while

before discarding

the mostly-unread items in the trash.

After college, I furnished my first apartment

with all the things Dad and his new wife said they didn’t need.

Their charitable contributions included

(among other things)

the rocking chair

and a box filled with old photo albums

chronicling my parents’ wedding and the years before

and just after my birth.

The box collects dust in a closet

and conceals a Polaroid of Mom struggling

to pry a Frisbee from the taut jaws of a black lab

that died in 1987.

I try to keep the chair looking presentable (for the rare visitor)

by wiping it down

with a wet rag now and then.

But I cannot completely erase

the thin ring of dust around each narrow spindle.

-- Mark Wright