Living Room

God sees me. I see you. You’re just like me.
       This is the cul-de-sac I’ve longed to live on.
Pure-white and dormered houses sit handsomely

along the slate-roofed, yew-lined neighborhood.
       Past there is where my daughters walk to school,
across the common rounded by a wood.

And in my great room, a modest TV
     informs me how the earth is grown so small,
ringed in spice routes of connectivity.

My father lived and died in his same chair
       and kept it to one beer. There’s good in that.
Who could look down upon, or even dare

to question, what he managed out of life?
       Age makes us foolish. Still, he had a house,
a patch of grass and room to breathe, a wife.

It’s my house now, and I do as I please.
       I bless his name. I edge the yard, plant greens.
Our girls swing on the porch in a coming breeze.