Rosewaistis

By John I. Blair

From my family history:
“He had lost ‘Rosewaistis’
through debts from his wife’s spending.
They had no children.”

I am not even sure
who this man was to me,
though probably a cousin
so many times removed
it doesn’t count.

He lived in Cornwall
between the English Channel
and the Irish Sea.

Rosewaistis still exists,
a hard and handsome house
nestled in green fields,
now in another owner’s name
and rented out to summer guests.

As such a guest I’d lie there
in a featherbed,
looking out the sash
at soft clouds drifting by
above the silent hillsides
of my mother’s mother’s
father’s father’s birth,

Wondering, is this the room
where she sat among her jewels,
stiff damasks, carved armoires,

Where he stared coldly at the walls
before he walked away?

©John I. Blair 2010