Refinishing

by Mary Davini

The stars are blinking off to their blue sleep

but I continue working.

I have found comfort

in stripping this old door.

There's something intimate

in the way it lets me take its layers

clean down to the soft pink pine.

I will admit there are certain spots

I scrape quite hard

to coax the old color away.

Certain angles

my sandpaper song must calm.

But in the end

it lays itself out unashamed.

I envy it,

this door with a second chance at life.

Starting over new and untainted,

clothed only in a silky spread of dust.