Family

                                                                                                                           they only have heard my farts,                                                                                                                            know the details of my snoring,                                                                                                                            know my smell homebound no shower for days,                                                                                                                            have been befuddled and pained at my “go away,”                                                                                                                            seen the true face of my total depravity.                                                                                                                            others have expected phone calls and not received them,                                                                                                                            emails and not got them, sorries and not heard them,                                                                                                                             compared the first façade against the rooms they have opened . . .                                                                                                                            but only my family lives amidst the squalor.                                                                                                                              this is my poem for them.                                                                                                                             even when I do what I do best they get the short shaft.