Desperate Housewives

Copyright © 2007 Jordan White

Desperate housewives,

Leading desperate lives.

They cannot make sense of what

Has put them in this fearful rut.

Perhaps one can begin to “get”;

Make sense of all this yet.

The housewives thought they knew

What it was they had to do.

Many would say they aimed too low,

A meager crop from a meager sow,

To willingly follow a trickled stream.

Why did they choose so meager a dream?

Like so many in this troubled world,

So many choices ‘round them swirled.

They did not know their inner soul

Would rebel against that scanty goal.

They thought their home would be their joy,

The arrival of a girl, a boy.

Normal people lived that way,

“Now I’ll be normal, too, hooray!”

All these things are fine, of course,

But why such terrible remorse?

They chased a dream, the dream fell by.

Do they have good reason to wonder why?

“The world is too much with us,” wise men say,

“We have given our hearts away, away.”

The poet knew what caused their fall:

That to lose one’s soul means: “lose it all”.

Dedicated to Marc Cherry, an extraordinary writer and fellow Californian.