Song with Shag Rug & Wood Paneling

My parents renovated that old home.
It is clean as a lobotomy.

The cracked linoleum’s erased.
New hardwood floors are gleaming.

Gone are gold shag rugs the shade
of California August,

on which I lay beneath the dust motes
studying the drift of genome, species, phyla;

gone the shameful faux-wood paneling,
dark embarrassment of my teenage years.

They’ve added a back door to the kitchen
where night after night I fought with my mother—

              I, who spent a decade sending hatred
toward a glittering asbestos ceiling,

have only a distant dump to hate;
the settling of old carcinogens.

My ancient vehemence is confounded
by brightly lit new silence,

emptiness beneath the open vaulting.