Porches

I’ve been making porches lately. They are lovely little pictures made from scraps of fabric and nuts and bolts. I rip and tack strips of patterned fabric in cream, brown and black to build eaves and panes. There are single eave porches, A-frames and dormers and colonial squares. There are clay flower pots and tall shady trees. There are porches with stairs and dark wooden doors with places for keys. I build lights in the windows and blow smoke from the chimneys. And I thought I had mastered the building of porches—the framing, designing, securing and quilting—so I thought I’d build an entire house.

I followed the picture with perfect proportions. It was lovely, nearly perfect. But the lights in the windows were dimmer and the tree not as tall and it didn’t have soul, no soul at all. No people lived there so I added a sign. “For Sale.” And went back to building porches.