HOME APPRAISALS
1. TWO-STORY, STONE AND BRICK,
SINGLE-FAMILY DWELLING
If there’s added value in a ceiling
fan,
then there must be value in a hawk.
They come
for the doves, the ridiculous quail,
and quick sparrows
squabbling daily on our neighbor’s
lawn,
suddenly plunging from nowhere,
suddenly gone—
launched off before my eyes blink open.
And there must be value every time they
miss
so plunge becomes pursuit,
becomes a game
played out in fan-tailed figure-eights;
it’s wild:
your heartsong humming, the sky
brighter blue. . .
I know this won’t go into the
appraisal—
just bedrooms, baths, etc.; two-car
garage.
There isn’t any math that factors
this.
No box to check if the front yard comes
with a hawk.
2. TOOL SHED, WORKSHOP, FULLY FENCED
BACKYARD
Tomatoes can be yellow!
Also small and shaped like ovals! We’re
learning things here:
that leaving out a shovel equals rust,
that seeds and dirt can make food out
of air,
that carrots follow their own thoughts
underground—
they must, or why so many knots and
curves
and none of them the same? We’re
learning sounds:
how August wind chimes mean a break
from heat.
We’re learning smells like rain on
dust. It’s too much
to count, to fit inside an estimate.
I’d measure me carrying the baby
around
before I went in, verified square feet.
I’d measure me holding up things for
him to touch,
saying This is a pine cone, Jameson.
This is a leaf.
3. .17 ACRES. CULINARY WATER
Not every decimal point is accurate.
They sometimes miss dimension, overlook
the sweep a peach tree adds to the
backyard
just by moving in the wind. . . Imagine
it
gone now, downed by a storm. Imagine
books
with missing pages . . . you know it’s
more than words
that disappear. So don’t discount the
tree.
There’s more to calculate than area.
Last summer, for instance, in the
kitchen—peaches peeled,
the crust rolled out—who knows what
she saw,
exactly, as I stood there making pie?
But she flashed a smile as bright as
cinnamon,
and I could tell exactly what she
meant. . .
Best one-point-something hours that
whole July.
4. 2,140 SQUARE FEET
says nothing at all about the unsquare
angles.
The living and dining rooms are
heptagons—amazing—
I didn’t even know that was a shape.
You pass between the two through an
open arch
but not the kind of arch you see in
church,
the kind you find in women: rounded
hips,
the small of her back, her
somersaulting laugh,
her slow smooth way of coming ’round
from sleep.
Upstairs follows the roof
line—trapezoids,
odd polygons. Three windows look out
at the mountains—more angles
balancing the sky. . .
Once when I was seventeen, the moon
looked close enough to walk to. Right
there. Huge. . .
The archway makes me think of that
sometimes.
5. JANUARY 26, 2009
Forty-three thousand job cuts in one
day,
in just one morning. Thirty thousand
more
by late-afternoon. Mine wasn’t one of
them.
We’re not part of the millions since
last May
who’ve lost their homes—lost
porches and front doors,
the mantel ’round their fireplace,
the trim
they painted ’round the windows one
April:
pale green to go with her flower
garden.
Or the place where he first saw her
naked.
Or their kids’ favorite hiding
closet. All. . .
whatever the details, whatever their
plans. . .
How do you fit that in boxes, tape-gun
it shut?
I don’t know; the news didn’t
answer. Instead they ran
the weather: Cold. Then a story
about a duck.
6. 3 BDRM, 2 BA, KITCHEN, FRML DINING
The baby has a bed but likes ours more.
He lets us know it, too. He lets it
fly—
like crossing two cats fighting with a
war
between accordions—but he is cute,
for sure.
And he’d eat everything if he had
teeth,
eat all the foods his sister won’t:
the fruit,
the eggplant parmesan, whatever’s
there;
already he’s reaching like a
quick-draw artist.
And here is where he’ll learn to
walk, then run,
then go out back in our sun-fat garden.
. .
Yes, the house has a crawl space
underneath.
Yes, the radiator’s certified. . .
I’m picturing him with his brothers
and sister:
all that noisy tangle in the yard.
7. UPGRADES TO THE PROPERTY: N/A
So none of what I’m telling you
applies;
it’s all not applicable. I’m
not surprised;
it’s just another headline like the
rest:
like Economic Crisis Faces Pres.,
like More Firms Pressed to
Liquidate,
like Home Sales Sluggish, Price
Decay, that’s all.
My cat, for one, could care less. He’s
focused
on squirrels: right up the tree trunks,
onto limbs.
He’s pretty bad-ass. He’d stretch
out on the news,
or credit report and appraisal, and go
to sleep. . .
I think that’s worth a note or two,
don’t you? . . .
And the grape vines, hawks, the
backyard corner
where the swing-chair hides behind
camellias? . . .
And how, when it’s still, you can
hear the whole house purr?
About the Poet:
Rob Carney is the author of three collections—
Story Problems
(Somondoco, 2011);
Weather Report (Somondoco, 2006); and
Boasts, Toasts, and Ghosts, winner of the 2002 Pinyon Press
National Poetry Book Contest—and two chapbooks, New Fables, Old
Songs, winner of the 2002 Dream Horse Press National Chapbook
Competition, and
This Is One Sexy Planet, winner of the Frank
Cat Press Poetry Chapbook Award in 2005.
Home Appraisals, a
new chapbook, including several poems that first appeared in
Sugar
House Review, is forthcoming from Plan B Press in fall 2012. He
is a Professor of English and Literature at Utah Valley University
and lives in Salt Lake City.
About the Sound of Sugar:
We’ve loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly),
so now we want an opportunity to better hear our contributors. We
will feature an audio recording of a poem from one of our seven
issues, read by the poet and updated every couple of weeks. This an
open invitation to all contributors from any of our issues, we were
delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to hear it.
