The Vines Poem by Caroline Misner

The Vines



They needn’t tell us what year it is,
how many years we’ve lived here.
If they were ivy, it would be so simple.
But they are not, only the offspring
of tendrils you planted long ago.

They need no trellis to climb this window,
brick by brick, reaching their sticky
hooks up the side of the house,
the one we vowed to die in, the walls
in which we raised three children.

One of them is gone now, reminding
us of our own mortality. These walls
in which we dreamed, planned, made war
and love. The vines have a purpose.
They conceal the chipped paint

on the window sill, the torn screen,
the face of the cat as he regards
the intricacies of the wasps that have
chewed a paper lodging into the doorframe,
the one we have never used.

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