Jealousy
       

I am thinking of the pictures
of his new wife when I strip

the bld camper's interior walls, tear out
the couch from its rounded alcove, and rip

up layer after layer of flooring: laminate, linoleum,
then plywood squares so rotten they give

way with a half-hearted blow from my hammer.
It's then I notice the detritus clinging to the steel frame:

an uninflated red balloon, a paper hat with an elastic string,
three green plastic army men, a batman figurine,

and a sun-bleached calendar from 1969, the remains
of a child's birthday party from over forty years ago.

I wonder what month of summer it was,
and where the family was camping,

what it was like to be loved
in the space I had destroyed.

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Copyright © 2018 Lynn Marie Houston All rights reserved
from The Mauled Keeper
Main Street Rag
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission