We used to read about it in school
textbooks: land of milk and honey, land
of emerald, close-clipped grass and golf
courses where, on weekends, men practiced
their swing and women huddled together
in their living rooms having Tupperware
parties as the charming family dog---
beagle, terrier, poodle--- sat up and begged
for treats. Meanwhile, grandmother dished up
rice for breakfast topped with boiled squash---
mashed with a fork, she said, it looks like egg.
From reading Nancy Drew novels, I learned
the word roadster; I thought sleuth was a career
for which one had to dress in three-fourth sleeve
cardigans and sheath skirts. Decades later,
in the land of the everlasting 30-year mortgage
and the terrifying health insurance co-pay, I order
breakfast at a diner and wind up with the sunny side-up
double yolk. We pinch every penny and it's only just enough
to keep us afloat, out of the red. How do others do it
as if it were as easy as breathing, as if trees were
leafed with crisp green, as if everything were only money?
Really feeling this poem.