Mother stands posed in the kitchen,

Father kneels in the backyard,

a hand raised above his head to hammer a nail.

Tommy and Susy play nice in their room,

waiting to hear Mother dear call them for supper.

Then they will straighten their stiff, synthetic joints

and hop down the dollar store stairs

to a warm tender meal of cold hard plastic 

prepared to be blessed by Father himself.

And here we will sit with our pink, painted cheeks 

and our unceasing smiles that tell nothing

of the untamed anger raging against

this clockwork orange we have become.

In this dollhouse of life where the world only wants

a Fisher Price family.