When carpet was plush or shag,
appliances Avocado,
or Harvest Gold, we bought
an eight-foot, down-back
sofa from Ross Maher Home
in Garden Grove. Castle Coin
the color was called,
but really it was yellow
threaded with gold, echoing the tile
in the big coffee table
we'd found at Bullocks Lakewood.
 
Every suburb we shopped or lived
in was named to speak of nature:
La Palma, Cypress, Garden Grove
promised an arbor or shady glen.
But our life was indoors,
in the deep grass of green shag
under the light of swag lamps,
our three babies climbing over
golden hills of sofa and chair.
The whirr of the vacuum, the blender,
the swish of dishes washing:
sweet enduring music of our sphere.

From Gravity: New & Selected Poems (Tebot Bach, 2018).
Used with the author's permission.