While other couches gazed at TV screens,
this one had alternative vocations.
It slouched beneath the weight of strays and teens,
bore the brunt of heavy conversations.
Firm enough so that we wouldn’t wallow,
Yet soft enough to cushion love’s first blows.
Gossip dropped between the seats was swallowed
whole, before Frank’s morning weather show.
Hash brown crumbs and hairballs from the pets
were hoovered up by Mary on the hour
and as the sun went down a stage was set,
with backing tracks of humming Triton shower
and scratched CDs frozen back to perfection,
for dancers doubled in glass door reflections.

Rebecca Myers is an Irish poet and performer originally from Dublin, currently living in Nelson, New Zealand. She makes up one half of the duo ‘A Pair of Poets’, who were awarded Best Script in the Nelson Fringe: Virtual Festival 2020. She has had her poetry published online on The Blue Nib, The Lake Review and Wine Cellar Press as well as in print in Popshot Magazine. For Rebecca, poetry provides a welcome creative outlet from her day job as a lab technician. You can find some more of her work on her Instagram @beccy.myers.