Matron of Suburbia

She walks through the valley of the shadows of lives,
she fears no evil through American eyes,
for thou art with her, upper middle-class wives.

Mediocrity is the lock and key
into her stock and taste-free
suburban asylum.

Live above your means but below your dreams.
Success is the shade of greener grass,
failure is the neighbor’s bigger boat and higher class.

The pressure is sure to press her
into the shapeless mold of her Mary Kay club,
leaving the left-over scraps of “the woman he married”
to be shaped by his new expectations
based on desperate housewives,
occasionally overflowing into
verbal abuse, bulimia,
and fresh Gerber daisies in the front planter.

Her children fill the role of
the whipped dog put down because of heightened allergies.
They tiptoe over starched carpets,
not touching the antique furniture
on the way to their antimicrobial rooms,
complaining of today’s high pollen count
and polluting their minds with Playstation III
as their muscle tone begins the long atrophy
towards festering bed sores.

Hold your head high when you step outside.
Scoff the weak, scorn the wealthy.
Adorn the drab and worn fads and forms
from former issues of celebrity magazines.
Disguise your guise, hide your lies
(naivety is your creativity).

Despise the wise.
Embrace folly for a taste of imitation fortune,
like a prime-cut filet
marinated in Natty Light
and served in a fancy bowl of A-1.