The Four Walls

Springing up
from the ink of the lifeless lines
sketched on the architect’s map
the four walls started growing swiftly.
Layer upon layer
of bricks and mortar
kept tearing the open
into an inside and an outside.
Strong they stood
growing taller,
and one day met the ceiling
blocking the clear blue skies
till they became that house.
Delighted, they moved in.

As she walked her day
between a stove counter
a dining and a bedroom
she would some days
put on her lipstick
looking at the mirror on the wall
smiling reluctantly.

She wondered often and
Then one other day
she asked the walls,
Why do you four walls seem like
a green room for him
to take off
the makeup, the costume, the character
he so carefully wears
when he goes out
on the other side of the walls.
What is it in your eight inches of thickness?

The walls smiled
and whispered to her,
Look up-close my dear,
the wall is inside him.
Green room, I ain’t,
A projector of reflection, perhaps!

As she adjusted
the frame of a happy picture of them
hung on the wall
she smiled faintly.
So did the walls.