May 29.24: Coping, but barely

May 29, 2024 by Oddment 21 Comments

Door Town

 

All the moms yelled

DON’T SLAM THE DOOR!

and then like recording

added some more:

I JUST SCRUBBED!

WIPE YOUR FEET!

You knew you were home

when you heard words so sweet.

But one house was different

in our little town,

where lived the redoubtable

Grandma Upside-Down.

She never shouted

such maternal commands

because she meandered

around on her hands.

She never yelled out

about anyone’s feet,

but she’d yell COME ON IN

which was heard down the street.

In her upside-downness

she’d always demand

SLAM IT, DAMMIT!

and stomp her hand.

The floor was her ceiling,

the ceiling the floor,

so it made perfect sense

for her upside-down door.

We’d have to get down

on the ground for her greeting,

forehead-to-forehead

in ground-level meeting;

it took quite a while

when she first moved in

to know as we stood there

she spoke to a shin.

And in the meanwhile

reverberation

of her upside-down clarion

door declamation,

and soon the whole town

performed on the doors

the 1812 Overture

with many encores.

Tourists would come,

to say that they’d heard

a door-slamming town,

and thus spread the word.

We learned it from Grandma,

then we amplified:

SLAM IT! and DAMMIT!

in chorus we cried.

And brick by red brick

came down in a crumble

because of the slamming

that made the walls tumble.

Our property value

might not be so good,

and earplugs are common

in our neighborhood,

but we’re ever progressive,

avant-garde, you might say:

with our very own influencer

to show us the way.

 

 

With thanks to Deborah for the photo,

submitted to Dan Antion’s

Thursday Doors Writing Challenge.