With a family
in a small house
Linoleum floors
Green and grey checkerboard
Lives
The american dream-
The little girl with big eyes and
Hands spread to catch
Scarlet tears that
Stain the sky in a watercolor sunset
She likes to draw
White picket fences
Her mom speaks of them often
Though
She does not understand why
White picket fences
With wings and fins
And a jetpack in case the wings won’t fly
She is the little girl
With a Skechers Slip-ons life
Who wants to be an astronaut
Someday

In a small house
Linoleum floors
Green and grey checkerboard
Lives
The American nightmare
Who picks up her daughter’s
Somedays
From where the were left on the
Floor
Gathering them gingerly
In her arms
Holding them as she never could her daughter
And she slides
Onto the green and grey
Plaid couch
Where she made love to her husband
Before
The Jack Daniels and Jim beams
Now
She only watches the programs
Promising to
Evaporate wrinkles
Dissolve eyebags
Only three easy payments of 26.99

In a small house
Linoleum floors
Green and grey checkerboard
Lives
America
In a boy
Not much older than his sister
Chubby and short
Always afraid
Of the monster
Under his bed
That slouches in stolen T-shirts
And reeks of booze
It has an unwilling name:
Dad.

The linoleum floors are older now
And the
Green and grey checkerboard family
No longer lives there
I do not know what happened
To the girl who
Cried sunsets
Perhaps she moved
Or
Couldn’t pay the rent
Or maybe
Just maybe
Sh was the first woman on the moon.