Beaten to hell and back,
our coffee table was once cherrywood,
but now mainly gogurt and juice box
stained in the indented crescent marks, pocks, and 
many-mooned crater-like gouges
the growth of our children left behind,
a mute testament to youth
rearing up out of the discolored terrain
of tired and flattened carpet
like an ancient artifact
of a lost, more primitive civilization:
the Stone Henge of the living room.
It would be better to raze the damned thing
and refurnish our home, update our culture
so that friends and neighbors don't laugh.
But to hell with them --
after all these druid years
of parenting ungrateful, unconditional love,
propping my feet on Stone Henge
is the most comfortable perch
left for my soul's aerie.