It's kind of seventies in here,
the paper bag spread out
beside the stove, swollen
with deposit bottles,
divorced and withdrawn,
ignorant of disease
the bareback ride into
an unknown desert,
the cheap meals
poured out of cans,
opened and baked,
silence while one works
and another rots her brain,
and sometimes popcorn
can be found tucked
behind the cushions
with loose change
and a comb whose origin
cannot be traced.
But outside, scandal and snow,
inflation, depression,
the listless and moribund
working class, drugged
by hundreds of channels
of saccharine fare,
cell phones and laptops,
internet, American Idol,
a viewed reality preferred
to any lived, a bubble of
righteousness in a world
so many shades of grey.
