429 West Walnut Street

by Stephanie Kaplan Cohen

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR ABOUT THIS POEM:

Writers are nosy. When I was young I loved to eavesdrop and check out the neighbors, just like Harriet the Spy. One conversation I overheard was my mother telling my Aunt Jenny how she bought 429 West Walnut Street. "The minute I saw the house, I knew I had to have it. I went looking with the real estate agent. That's snot nose said I couldn't afford it, that it was out of my price range.

"The old man who owned it told me he was thinking of tearing it down because he had built it for his daughter as a wedding present, but then his daughter's fiance ran off with a secretary."

This delicious story made me wonder about the houses on our block. Did each house have a thrilling story behind it? And what about the people living there now? What stories were unfolding after the children I knew went home for dinner. In this poem, I touch on some of the fantasies that my young writer's mind concocted.


429 WEST WALNUT STREET

Outside these walls,
in the yellow house next door,
a mother and a father
and their children
are having breakfast.
Orange juice, croissants
and hot chocolate.

Outside these walls,
in the shingle house next door,
sisters share a bathroom
and never fight.
They lend each other money
until the next allowance
and give each other loose-leaf paper
all the time.

Outside these walls,
in the brick house behind us,
the mother and father
take the children to France.
They don't care
if the kids don't practice their scales.
And they go to bed
whenever they want.

How did I get born inside
these walls.