My girlfriend’s mother wore a yellow housecoat.
It took the place of sunlight that never found its way
into the block of concrete, they called home:
One bedroom and a porch for five, six with me,
crammed around the table in the entranceway
to talk and drink coffee.

An opening to the living room was blocked
by a velvet rope looped between brass poles
suggesting you should wait to be seated,
but the wait, you knew, would never end.
Beyond the barrier, white pile carpeting
still bore the imprint of vacuum tracks curving
under a polished coffee table decorated with doilies,
starched white to match the lampshades,
pristine in their protective cellophane.
And the sofa, its virginity intact, sat proudly
under plastic covers in which it had been delivered
six years before. Above hung two photographs,
Kennedy and Roncalli, President and Pope.

“They’ll probably never visit”,
my girlfriend’s mother said, her housecoat glowing
like a priestly garment in her holy of holies.
“But if they ever did, I’d be ready.”