Most times though we’d sit
with trays on our knees
the microwave cartons
full of steaming food too hot to touch at the edges
and a tad too cold in the centre
we ate with the blue grey haze of tv light
painted across our faces
but we ate together
the jarring pattern of the Axminster carpet
beneath our feet and the whirrs of Artex above
light trapped behind the lined orange curtains
a single column knifing horizontally
toward my stepfather
his long legs dithering up and down in unison
the stern brow of my mother angled deep
and hard toward the floor
