Familial deterioration

Photo by Ben Maxwell from Pexel

Once family dinners

Replaced by microwave meals

On the fly

Fend for yourself

Retreat to your own corner

Sunday morning sharing The NY Times

Working the crossword together

Replaced by solemn brooding

Sleeping off the hangover

Of another desperate night

The inside joke

Now falls on deaf ears

Who remembers

What was even so funny

Saturday afternoon drives in the country

Going nowhere

Enjoying the ride

Replaced by his golf game

Mostly played out in the clubhouse

And her book club

With book abandoned

For resentful talk of his golf game

And too much wine

Summers at the cottage

Together away from the world

With fireflies and raft races

Sleeping in rows on the screened in porch when there are too many cousins and too few bedrooms