Here Now

I sit in bed with my reading pillow
and my lap desk, my laptop nearby

iced tea on my bedside table
okay, just a splash of sweet tea
and then water to fill the glass
edged in blue at the top

a Lego knight on horseback
that my sons made for me
he guards my books
stacks of them on the table
and on the floor along with CDs
I’m ripping onto iTunes

three frames on the walls
each on a different wall
one of my wife and I
on our first trip to Vegas
where we’d later marry
it was taken in a photo booth
but looks like a pen and ink
sketch by Rembrandt
one a watercolor of cherry blossoms
painted by my mother
the last a picture I took
of our firstborn the first week
we lived in this house
it’s not even a photograph
it’s a digital snapshot
my wife printed out at work
on a color printer on plain paper
we were so broke then
having just paid first and last
and the security deposit

beneath the watercolor a coffee table
long ago removed from the living room
as we baby-proofed the new house
now a permanent fixture in our bedroom
where stands the Tiffany lamp
that was my grandmother’s
an heirloom left to me
in my father’s will
safe from boys who are not allowed
to play in our bedroom

even when I’m alone in here
reading, listening to music,
or writing a poem
I’m surrounded by my family

/ / /

This poem was written to the Write here, now prompt at We Write Poems. Thanks to Pamela for the prompt.