musée

the sun is out
my father digs in the garage for some passed-down or possibly over-borrowed yard tool
my mother preempts her cooking with asterisks and winces
my brother breezes in as my husband sneaks inside jokes into another conversation

we laugh at it all
the surety of the impossibly perfect gadget buried somewhere in those steel chest drawers
the richness of the excellent meal, the ridiculousness of her apologies
the way the weatherman gets off scot-free even when he's plumb wrong

today there'd been no bad drivers on our roads
no cells dividing imperfectly (to the best of our knowledge)
our old dog runs underfoot, scolded for nearly toppling visitors
the visitors still come
they're all still here