Henley On Thames

I am grieving for my lost family,
The husband,
The little boys and girls,
The kidnapped dog,
The house that burned to the ground.

You look at me strangely,
Because these people are all alive,
Living in other states,
The husbands married to their fifteenth wives,
The kids in the counting houses counting out the money.

The only people who are really gone
Are those who escaped to live it up in Never Never Land,
While we had to starch our clothes
And sit in wooden chairs,
Staring at paper mache dummies
The undertakers had made in the back rooms,
Snickering behind our backs
As we were sitting in those stilted slat back chairs.

You say I am being too melodramatic
With all my flowery words.
I don't answer you back,
Because I am planning my new family,
Husbands and children with more IQs
And even higher expectations.

There will be no disappointment,
Because I have written it so that this all takes place
On a mission probe to deepest space,
Where time is so badly warped
That we all live happily ever after.

January 13, 2007