Closing Up House

CLOSING UP HOUSE / Joyce Peseroff The Ogee clock, whose tinny stroke woke them at six, at seven, and at eight is lifted from the nail, its weights unhooked (last year, one dropped with force enough to dash the bottom out). She slides it on a blanket—safe from thieves, beneath the couch. He scours each grey, oozy corner of the refrigerator, and throws away the open bag of flour, the grapey-purple box of Raisin Bran. No succor for the starving mouse—who'll find instead three traps baited with a thread of honey mixed with peanut butter. Flies will doze and drop with the temperature, now he's blocked the stove with summer Sunday Times; with ads for bathing suits and strapless shoes the damper's sealed. They carry water out in buckets, pitchers, kettle, coffee-pot . . . how long the copper heater takes to drain! A gadget sucks the pipes of moisture, bleeds it through a hose, and drips all over her garden. Straws that prod the ground were once soft-bodied stems of lilies . . . even massive marigolds brown at the edge, like paper scorching. The pod of Summer's cracked. How could we be called away to winter's privacy— Nof voluntarily— The Missouri Review · 207 ...