In the Suburbs You Can Have a Perfect Life 
by Susan Bucci Mockler

The dog sniffs a fire hydrant.   
The son shoots baskets until dark.   
The grass is sharply edged along the  
sidewalk.  
It takes only a moment for the man  
to forget he is father, husband, 
for his wife to become stone.  
He clenches his fist, brings back his arm, 
as though winding up for a pitch.   
The driveway is swept clean.   
Moths dart around the porch light.  
Dirt spills from the planter.  
The son runs away. 
The sky fractures.  
Fruit hangs low on the plum tree. 

Susan Bucci Mockler is the author of Noisy Souls. Her work has appeared in the Maximum Tilt Anthology, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, Gargoyle, The Delmarva Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Cortland Review, The Paterson Literary Review, Lunch Ticket, Voices in Italian Americana, and the anthology My Cruel Invention, among others. She has been a poet in the Arlington County school system and teaches writing and literature at local universities. She lives in Arlington with her family. “In the Suburbs You Can Have a Perfect Life” first appeared in Lunch Ticket.

Written in Arlington / Spoken in Arlington is a print and digital collection of the poets and poems of Arlington, VA, edited by Katherine E. Young and published by Paycock Press (forthcoming, fall 2020). It is supported in part by Arlington County through the Arlington Cultural Affairs division of Arlington Economic Development and the Arlington Commission for the Arts. For more information, visit Arlington Arts.

Image: After the Rain mixed media/collage on canvas by Anya Getter (fragment)