Mine Is A Rich Blended Tapestry At Best

Montreal plexes

Mine Is A Rich Blended Tapestry At Best

It’s not that I don’t like rich people.
It’s just that affluence on my block
Is built upon insularity
And muchly white folk with privilege
And in retirement
Or with young families and “special” houses.

Yes they are friendly: I like them.
But living next to the Dodge Ram
Hot tub, and the Cooper Mini
The HUGE fake-distressed muscle-man truck
And the how many floors and gardening?
Is not, for me, becoming.

Live stacked. In plexes. 3x blocks wide.
Mixed: Owners, renters, old folks, welfarers.
Off streets busy with tourists, locals
And immigrants and foreign skilled workers.
Where bakery bread is cheaper.
Where second-hand coats are sleeker.

Cookie-cutter, big houses is: mainstream.
Mainstream is a stagnant flow in the only direction you know.
It is not a conscious choice, nor destination.
It is a “what you do” and the white wedding.
An expensive wedding dress.
Aluminum in anti-perspirant.

And all the things you blindly buy and do
Because you never, ever question.

Why did you get married on the beach at sunset?
Why did you shave your sideburns for the conference?

It’s not that I don’t like rich people.
It’s just that affluence-shown is gauche.
Humility reflected of a privileged status
Is admirable if sociable across all classes.
I don’t judge, but I have my tastes.
Mine is a blended rich tapestry at best.

Plexes over equivalent white picket fences.

Sylvie Hill 2017

White picket fence --- Image by © Marnie Burkhart/Corbis

White picket fence — Image by © Marnie Burkhart/Corbis