A POEM IN WHICH THE FAMILY IS NOT A TRAGEDY, UNION CITY, TN

There are no beige-carpeted bathrooms here. 

No frozen lasagna from the salvage grocery. 

Not a single pill organizer. The gameshow 

network has been canceled. You won't break 

the light fixture by opening a closet door too 

wide. No one has lived so long under a thumb 

that what its nail collects seems feast. Instead,

the apple orchard is crowned with bees. Leave 

windows open, and you'll wake to a doe and

her fawn stepping through dew to wrap fruit 

in long tongues. To quiet breath and crunch.