despondency

The dishes clatter and chime as
my mother puts them away in
their rightful places.
Hard porcelain plates scratch together in
a raspy lament as fingers retreat.
Glasses clink and mingle in the drawers,
behind cupboards.
Hissing legato water melts from
the tap to clean her working hands.
My father raps on his aging keyboard
as the images around him darken
in the glow of his desk lamp.
He brings together lines to fashion
houses that families
will one day inhabit.
His parents glare solemnly at
the moving screen in the next
room, the next dimension, calling
out for silent help with the
washing machine, with the phantom
remote control;
alone among their pleas.
My brothers, friends, gods slam
together party glasses and
shout of love;
real, or artificial, or forgettable.
And I, upstairs,
somewhere in the dark and frothy
edges of purgatory,
can hear the sounds of the working day
from beneath the clatter of
messy heavens crying and orgasming
as they mesh with new hells.