to such crass abstraction. 
The neighbors gather 
at the front entrance, the fat pastor 

lets boards fly--the garage door 
closes on the wail of his invectives, the wife's
face puffing, just gasping.  My mind's aflame--

it's those names, flash of the Airstream 
just past, clash of  pans falling, just

now--three houses down.  A fat boy
wheels past on his bicycle, the toy dog follows 
with the face of a mule.    My child

watches undistracted 
while her father's face
fills with words. Mushrooms sprout
spurious and greedy,
march toward us across the lawn.  Termites 

shatter the fallen log.  It's that flaw
in the face, in that instance.  His lips 
smeared and insufficient.

My soul's a knobbed landscape-boxed,
hedged, affixed, enclosed-
a domestic outcropping, suborned
doomed, quite unsentimental 
alone.

-- Amy Pence