Quote:
Originally Posted by Turner Cassity
Navy Housing
On Jones Street every house is painted white,
each door is white, and every yard adheres
to certain rules: the grass at ankle-height,
an apple blossom tree bent toward the sun,
a single bush trimmed squat and round and so
symmetrically it seems manmade. No one
can deviate from others in the row.
How easily I lose myself out here.
Even the dog can barely sniff his way
back from the park. Was it a left we took?
A right? Perhaps it’s safer just to stay
indoors than go off course again. Oh, look—
another flag, another garden gnome,
another sign proclaiming Home, Sweet Home.
|
The entire sonnet is ironic, and that's commendable. Could be early Levittown and a thousand other subdevelopments--I'm not sure whether "Navy Housing" is a good title or not. It works, but I wish for something that hints at the person behind the house. (I have not read this whole long thread.) "Perhaps" dilutes this too much for me--I'd use those two lines for something like "It would be smarter not to stray/outdoors and"--thus amping up the irony ever so slightly.
The voice in this works well; I see the person speaking as someone who will "let her hair down" with a few drinks, but otherwise not.