Godhead

"This is male bonding"
we tell Maureen,
cheerfully brazen
as we crack open
the 48 oz. can of Libby's.
We have to think of
something quick
otherwise we'd look stupid.
Her dark eyes
confer a practiced glance
of tolerant, amused disgust
and she bends back
to weeding the flowerbed.
We
– two grown males,
and Ry, who is two, and
speaking just now in repitends –
sit grandly enthroned
on the concrete
kitchen steps
and soup-spoon
vast mouthfuls
of cold pork and beans
straight from the can
while our acolyte Cosa's
intelligent brows
twitch anxious
above her alert
brown dog eyes,
intent upon
lordly conferral
of inevitable spillage.
As we eat
we carefully share
the all-important
bits of pork
between us,
surveying our
backyard domain
in benevolence,
sated minor deities
that we are.