Renovation

A drawing on a piece of wrinkled torn paper of a cartoon pig standing on its back hooves. It wears overalls and a bucket hat. Its tongue is sticking out and its left hoof is touching its mouth.

A waist-high ceramic pig

wearing overalls

appears on our front lawn;

we can afford whimsy now.

A basketball hoop in the driveway

a pair of young mallard ducks

make a home of our creek.

We name them Bob and Anna.

They come waddling when we call

because Lewis can tame anything.

He builds an arched wooden bridge

to the wild back acres of our yard

buys Christopher a quad

to zoom past

his friends on bicycles.

Cara’s dreams—a Swatch watch and J.Crew wardrobe

come true,

and for me

a breathtaking brand-new

portable electric Brother typewriter

to write without

spraining fingers

on Mom’s clunky manual one.

An electric Brother typewriter with a piece of paper inside.

Lewis loves rhyming wordplay

corny puns, teasing quips

decidedly dad humor.

Unlike Dad, who

at a school performance

leaned over during a kid’s

solo rendition of

“Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”

and whispered,

“Will somebody give this kid

the fucking time already?”

Lewis works endlessly

building his business

is ambitious in ways

our father is not.

In one week,

still grimy from work,

he builds a basement fireplace

converting an unfinished square hole

brick

by solid brick

transforming

useless cinder block space

into a family room.

The back of a person’s legs from the knees-down. They wear a calf-length pencil skirt and a pair of wedge heels.
Two ducks with different feather patterns standing on grass, both facing the right.