“Realtor” | Rachel Huberty | Poetry

realtor

Rachel Huberty

looking back at it now, being with you felt wrong somehow like the strangeness of going inside a house on the market with no furniture inside barren, plain, unexciting but you can imagine the possibilities of a couch here (and at this angle) a ten-by-twelve rug there and where to put the television (there’s the reflection of the afternoon sun to consider)

it’s nice to dream, to get caught up, to see the bigger picture but when later reminiscing alone you remember the scuffs on the floorboards and the dark flecks along the otherwise pristine white walls in it, everything was just right and there was the promise of a future

you remember the feeling of leaving the house and how your breath misted in front of you, clouding your vision salt stains lined the sidewalk leading to the street and the promise lay splintered in the snow (fated to grow into yellow roses come spring)

perhaps i’m just another one of fitzgerald’s cynical idealists but i wanted to make it work (even though i knew it would crumble in the end) i wanted to line the walls with framed matisse prints and put a runner in the hallway i wanted to buy an expensive knife set never to be used doomed to collect dust in a dark