A small floorplan and everything else
big – like the 98-inch Smart TV
with quantum dots and a boofy couch –
turns this place into a 24hr loungeroom
where my parents are not blinking.
Their hands don’t orbit anywhere
near the other. Perhaps that’s marriage –
people don’t touch, but touch can’t
work when Blu-Ray tickles burnt milk skin.
Sometimes I can edge a question in like
how is life in the hometown? And sometimes
there is an answer, like the meat works
is closing and a consortium has moved
in and the Filipino boys mum houses
are going to miss permanent residency.
Jeez mum, I say, that’s a bombshell
but silence resumes, bar the jingle
snare and a thick-necked morning
show front man laughing at small
things which don’t move a muscle
on their soft faces. If it were quiet
enough perhaps we could all move
closer, I mean it’s a small place
I’ve been away and the murk
is still lurking around this room.