I think a lot about the shows we watched.
Latch-key kids have a very special bond
With their TVs:
Windows to a world locked
Behind their own window.

I remember looking at Corey Matthews’
House and wondering:
Why don’t any of the
Houses on my block look like that?

My parent’s liquor store wasn’t on
Boy Meets World. The Cruz’s Dry Cleaners
And the Kim’s Hawaiian-plate lunch shop
Don’t exist
In that world.

Houses with front and backyards
Instead of apartment buildings
With cement foyers
Or duplexes back-to-back with
Tri-levels and bi-sected
By alleys.
Did Mr. Matthews ever worry
About parking at night?

But I think most about those
Big holiday episodes:
Thanksgiving or Christmas.
The whole family gathered
Around a table
With the breaking of bread
Serving as the breaking of resentments
And the sharing of joys.

It wasn’t that we didn’t have
The giant turkey or expensive ham
Though, I guess, our turkey was smaller
And we sometimes didn’t have a ham at all.

It was that the episode’s conflict
Was often solved
By a grandparent.

And mine were thousands of miles away
Connected by unreliable cables
Costing a week’s pay
For 10 crackle-y minutes
Of my *Lolo* softly listening
To all he’d missed.
For 10 crackle-y minutes
I got to forget
All I’d missed.