Love in a Trailer Park

Yellow moon, green furniture.
That’s how I see you, darling, framed inside our trailer at night
I don’t see the stains, the mold
Feel the threat of eviction
Or notice the garbage cans out front, needing to be emptied
Or hear how that damned screen door squeaks, refusing to sit right on its hinges


I see only your handsome feet, dignified and surrounded by a garland of shag carpet
A rusty red wreath gathered around your toes
And then in the odd blue glow of the television screen,
The blurry static dances in soft white dots across your face
I giggle because even in this shitty place we don’t have rabbit ears to fuss with anymore.
We have a converter box that we bought with a seventy dollar coupon from the government.


I kiss your unshaven cheek and whisper, “wait here.”
Hands in flowered oven mitts, I slide out our TV dinners.
Salisbury steak tonight, honey—not because it’s the best,
but because tonight we’re feeling nostalgic.
Remember when we were kids, before we knew each other?
With separate parents and separate lives?
Both of us were sitting at our respective kitchen tables,
Watching Rescue Rangers. Eating Salisbury steak.


Here we are again, my love.
Even though back then we thought that as grownups
We would eat only pizza and chips,
That we would watch cartoons all day long
And do whatever we wanted,
Just because we could.

That rain sure clicks and clacks on this tiny metal rental
And now our stomachs are full with twenty-five cent frozen dinners.
We watch cartoons because there's nothing else to do
And our fingers lace when we finally fall asleep on that old green sofa
For all our big dreams, darling, things sure turned out different than we'd hoped.
Except we are together.

[inspired by my exciting new life as a social work intern, as well as my own dealings with unemployment-related poverty and the slightly grim job economic climate that awaits me upon graduation]