This was the first major piece of brand new furniture we bought
No more thrift store half eaten models or yard sale deals.
I was determined at the time to pay cash
But it took me two pay checks through a finance deal.
That was years ago when we were flush from marriage.
Wide, soft, large, and gray, it occupies a third of the den.
We spend hours here. We watch television shows.
We get a little drunk. We fade into sleep under the half light.
Across the room is a matching love seat. It sits empty more, faces the window.
So often I see this sofa and think
We have not yet made love here.

Everyone in the family loves the sofa. Our little girl
Climbs up and down the cushions
Ten or twelve times a day. “Up, up, up,” she says.
To keep the dog off the sofa when we’re gone
We have to put down sheets of tin foil.
The cat sleeps on the top cushion and crushes it.
I have resided there for hours
And never looked at the clock. It is
A kind of drug for the entire self, mind and body.
Deep dark forgetful slumber is the result.

The faint spills, the worn spots, the crooked leg,
The unshapely backs that never stay forward—
All of it we rarely notice. We live with it, it’s ours, the sofa.
It’s not expensive, top of the line, but the sofa
Has never failed to be solid, and a loose life needs a solid base.
We sat here together and cut out photos
From our wedding. We sat here together
And tried to form words to describe the wine.
We sat here and decided to move to California.
We sat here and read Tarot cards to old friends
In the middle of the night. We sat here a long time
As you nursed our little girl on your breast.

How many timeouts did I snooze through? How many disappointments
At meaningless contests did I feel obliged to endure?
There is a limit to the joy of vicariousness.

We sat here through brawls and deaths and secret joys.
We sat here never thinking
Of when we will no longer sit here
When the sofa will be still, empty,
No need for earning value, in a stranger's closed basement,
Not even waiting, void of any memory.