Nights were loud in that house with its cedar and glass,
confinements beautiful and absorbing, like color

collecting light until it’s saturated and has to give
something back. Brightness the shade of hay drifts in.

Crickets strategize. There must be a plan to all this
disorder, a reason that the lines miss connecting

and the scarlet curtains praise the fading qualities
of the sun. Years unrolled like a tape measure, calculating

precise geometries of anger, the angles of slammed doors,
the exact number of minutes it takes a pork chop

to cool. Longer than Cronkite’s half-hour drone about the moon
landing or gas lines, and longer than any discussion of divorce.

Some words pierce the walls. They’re mosquitoes buzzing
around an ear. They’re swatted away to silence, lapping

the long hall. How long can she simmer there in her room,
blaring music and plucking her eyebrows into scythes?

Mid-century, the last one, the holidays minimized
misdeeds by limiting the fare: maybe
men and women could quaff a martini,
make out under the eaves of misadventure,
murmur promises they never intended to make.

Merry this and happy that, much
merriment along the way to the movies.
Meanwhile, the cement’s drying, made
matter-of-fact by time and many
marriages—snail to lime to mash.

Mark my words: we celebrated madness,
moderated anything remotely normal, minded
Monday’s hold over what felt mapped,
manufactured, the over-the-top Mardi Gras
manners practiced just before Mass.

Mean lines appeared in our faces, mild
marks of the stress of making
mediocre bargains of every meal.
Meager was a friend, a memory
meeting us on its way out of the mirror.