Abysmally Normal... Poem by delilah contrapunctal.... yes, that's how I intended to spell it.........

trying so hard....to hide
behind the right plants, clipped. groomed to perfection......not one a whimsical topiary...
controlled...their health and conformation a must....they've been told....and must obey.....they cower, upright and dutiful....no leaf out of place...ever...
the on site sibling quilts....perfectly.....would a pricked finger have bled.....?
the piano no one plays...it is grand, imposing....silent....
the children...the right schools.....perpetuating the myth in innocence.....
their cars....just as right...just as proper....another adherence to the norm....
the gnomish entity in the lower apartment rules completely.....benevolent, to the untrained eye, to the blind soul......to the studiedly uninvolved.....
the often-visiting other daughter laughs hysterically....nonstop....the resident one, large and fiercely meek, pays stifled tribute to the gnomess...'we are alike in so many ways'...she was told...and became so....subsumed early....
we of the neighborhood are not the sort of people who would judge or begrudge the gnomess' son-in-law his bisexuality, for his loving his fellow actors in heart and deed.....he is free, in his way....the gnomess and her daughter do not speak of it....they are normal, you see......and an agreement has long since been reached......I am not privy to the formula, nor need I be.........they are carefully, carefully normal......and keep busy.....busy.....busier.....we all fashion our comforts of whole cloth and of remnants......though I am uneasy with all the perfection.....
..fortunately, it isn't catching.........I do feel a certain empathy with those leaves that dare to fall in the driveway.....