garbage belches out tinsel dinnerware
in celebration of yet another dinner Doordashed.
since leftovers are not enough for tomorrow’s meal,
toasted breadcrumb flecked orecchiette
is thrown away with newspapers
and sea-salt-scented hand soap bottles.
again Amazon arrives—
my son enchanted by packaging
long claw of cardboard erects skin,
his emerging consumer frisson.
a plaything is birthed from plastic,
dilates pupils
shuffles one foot to another—
the promise!
later, our boat oozes past mansions,
its exhaust leak stirs lawn chemicals
in the cool north shore mixing glass.
wind in my hair,
sun and hydrocarbons
makes water’s surface a disco ball—
we live in paradise
we live in paradise!
Tanya Tuzeo is a mother to two children and two unpublished poetry collections "We Live in Paradise" and "Miserable People". Submitted are poems from the former, a merciless observation of our most treasured relationships, the perennial ones of motherhood and romance, in a time of environmental and civic decay. Her poems are forthcoming in "Wrath-Bearing Tree."