Chipped white fences
Separate trimmed blades
Of over-watered grass
Daring nature to defy
Suburban regulations and
Trash pick up on Tuesdays
Ignored mugs of Folgers
Suspended by French manicures
And whispered confidences.
Peering over a mirrored green lawn
Past beige patterned curtains
Family pictures and floral sofas
At a set of green matched-luggage
Patient beside the maple door,
While Mrs. Anders scribbles a note
About Aunt May being terribly ill
And signs “Love, Mom” in red
Before she sticks the stationary
Between brown paper lunches
On the black granite counter.
On the even number side
Of Carrington Avenue
Emmeline Smythe takes a sip
Her blue mug shaking,
As she watches the innocent scene
Unfold in house 917.
She knows Aunt May's on a cruise
Through the fourteenth of June
And today's is only the eighth
She speculates with her neighbor
Crossing her fingers those green bags
Are not waiting for the black duffel
He packed some socks into this morning
For this weekend's “work” vacation
Locked in meetings in L.A.
Don't bother to call
His phone never has reception
At the Hilton suites
While blond and pearled,
Her companion pretends,
That her own pink bags
Were never packed into
His silver Impala
For a similar weekend trip.
Panged with memories
Of champagne and bagels.
Early morning runs on the beach
Before a return to white fences
Middle-age divorcee life
And a drop-out, cocaine sniffing son.
Unable to cross the chipped white fences
Emmeline and Ms. Blond Pearls display
The same fear of nature that keeps their
Grass exactly two inches long
And on the right side of the fence.
Because to look back inside
Past their own beige curtains
And floral couches would turn
Two harlequin housewives
Into biblical pillars of salt.