Joanna Gilman Hyde

The Tomato-coloured Couch 12:15pm

This Morning My Daughter reported waking

to the song of multitudinous bird-life

the dehumidifier tray was full

but She had no hot water

in The Atlantic House —

My First Marital Home

with Eliza’s Father

Who picked the colours

& built an addition

complete with screened-in porch

off Our New Bedroom

I sat out there in the shelter of the screens

in My Post-Mother’s-Death Depression

& wondered, along with everyone else,

why I was not happy