Painted Room

by Abigail Lloyd

We’ve painted this room
Too many times to count
And every application the space around us shrinks 

Beginning with ochre--
When those trees sat overgrown
They eclipsed the sun
So it shown from the walls
—in mocking flare

And the space around us shrinks

Then green—like clover
In the delay of winter 
It glowed in crassness 
Against the bare scene

And the space around us shrinks

Next mauve--
That summer the heat
Crept in the cracks
—Locked us in
And made us look at every crease

And the space around us shrinks

finally —that blue-like slate
Fading this mess we’ve made
Warding off our ghosts 
That plague us till year end

And the space around us shrinks

Here we sit—this room thick with paint
two sitting mollusks 
—encroaching each other’s shell

And the space around us shrinks

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Abigail Lloyd, a wife and mom of two, uses poetry to give permanence to fleeting moments and abstract thoughts. She writes with cartoons in the background and doll clothes strewn beneath her pen.