Unfinished Rooms Poem by Ryan Van Winkle

YELLOW ROOM

For two years
it was a bare light bulb
by the side of the bed.

It was Tom Waits
if Tom Waits
was a light bulb.

I never found a shade that fit
and in summer I'd watch moths
swing low, singe their wings.

It was an attic room
with a slanted ceiling
and there were times

when it was so still,
cold and quiet,
it felt like camping.

BROWN ROOM

There was one room where I was on top
and she was drunk, but competent
with her hand, her skin

and my mouth was cotton dry, then wet
and on the floor with us
were stacks of parched books,
books with thin, petite fonts.
Like the back of a library, this room.

And it was only luck which stopped us,
let us finish with our others, in other
more furnished, less closeted quarters.

RED ROOM

After painting the room brothel red,
smears of paint stuck
to the curve of her breast.

Late at night, we smelled the paint dry.
She had red dawning on her thigh.

This was something ripe I took, didn't mind
the smell.
By morning I was nauseous, my head stained
by deep oil.

She wanted to hang her pictures on dry,
scarlet walls: a neat row of postcards,
the Japanese print over the fireplace.

And I wanted to go for a long walk,
shake my hair in the wind.
Never know what she chose.

GREEN ROOM

She kept a Christmas tree
in the corner for four months.
By the time I pulled her
it was all branches.
The needles stuck
to our bare feet
and we brought them to bed,
furnished each other.
In the morning
her curtains
played shadows
on open walls.
She'd meant to hang
fairy lights, tapestries
but then the tree died,
the lease was up and
the carpet was covered
in pines.

WHITE ROOM

My parents pulled
everything out:

the comics
from the closet

the LPs
the cassettes

the posters
the paperbacks.

The stains scrubbed
from the cream carpet.

The mattress my virginity sunk into
sits at the Salvation Army.

Home is not
a recognized place.

Home is a room
with a mirror

leaning against
the wall.

No thumbtack holes,
no coffee rings

on the nightstand.
A halogen light,

clean, surgical sheets.
It is almost done,

they say,
just a few more things

and the room
will be complete.