This is an experiment in intertwining two poems. Not sure the experiment is completed yet, but here's what I have so far.
Better Homes
and Gardens
We practiced split level living
during our 1950’s Delaware days
in the newest development
in the nation’s flattest state
A two-faced Picasso print
on the upper landing,
as we boys played tackle football
where our treeless backyards met
my parents room to the right
Danish modern with a bookcase
built
while the girls
did Maypole dances
round the clothes-hung
carousels,
into the blonde and black
headboard:
the Bible, Green Mansions, and Peyton
Place
back
when mothers warned
playing in puddles
and public pools
might lead to polio but let their darlings
At the opposite end, my bedroom
a penny taped to the tone arm
of my tinny turntable so I could
frolic
in the fog behind
the mosquito truck and
play “The Great Pretender”
without skipping on a scratch
as
the refinery’s eternal
flame lit and scented the
languid evening air –
Below the bedrooms,
the carpeted living room
where we seldom sat
round patio parties
and barbecues
during
those Eisenhower years
the Formicaed kitchen
where the Waring blender’s
whirred
of prosperity and duck and
cover
drills
the formal dining room
where we ate creamed tuna on toast
with a smokestack that glowed
from dusk to dawn
when Dad wasn’t there,
tabasco hamburgers when he was
like
a giant cigarette before
the Surgeon General’s distant
early warning went into effect
A few steps down
to the fake brick
family room
while we sat on the air conditioner and let
it warm and cool our sweaty legs,
the fan’s caged blades roaring at our flesh
at my first boy-girl
party, two couples had a kissing
contest while I watched
too
young to be afraid
The
Twilight Zone
or too old to
admit it
on the same TV where
Dad
made me catch 100 throws
before
he’d let me take a break
where the Phillies pretended
to be a baseball team
though
he never played
baseball
as a boy
Beyond one door,
was the two car garage,
he
was a cheerleader in college
before
it was competitive and cool
where we kept our winter boots
the field mice slept in
and a boxer before
it
became ancient and dumb
and the red Rambler
stained the cement floor,
just to the right of where
we
swung so hard on the swing set
its
legs lifted from the concrete
anchors
that were supposed to keep it safe,
my father got out of his Galaxy
and emptied his stomach
of what my mother excused
as the traveling salesman’s flu
the
danger adding to our delight
as
the world spun round and round
until the sky became
the grass,
and the clouds became the ground
Beyond the other door,
was the basement:
My
dad claimed his cigars were safe
since
he said he never did inhale
my father’s maroon leather
punching bag that gave me
a bloody nose
Carling’s
Black Label
was
cheaper than Miller’s
and
even cheaper by the case
the water pipe that burst
when I used it for chin-ups
as he grew his prized tomatoes
beside the
septic tank
lined with yesterday’s
news, the empty bird cage
for the mean parakeet
we all forgot to feed.
