You think I’m just an ordinary couch,
don’t you? Just another sofa
in this (or any other)
wrinkled second hand store
with one dim-lit employee
who doesn’t know squat
about fabrics or wood grains.
OK, so you sat one family for a lifetime
of T.V. shows and rented movies,
faces aimed straight ahead on parallel lines
that rarely intersected, voices muted
by a universal remote, hearts unplugged,
knees that didn’t touch.
Me? I listened to a thousand stories
from a single file parade of the soul starved
who waited their turn, held their place
in line with their teeth, gripping their
pull-off number
in this deli queue for the disordered
like it was a winning lottery ticket.
I’ve kept the secrets of villains and
victims, filed between my cushions
the case notes of betrayals and addictions,
longings and lostings,
body sins and head wounds,
and the heart explosions which I muffled
and absorbed with no telling stains.
--rLp--
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