Blocks

The TV flashes a face of fluctuating hues
as lassitude fills your eyes.
This has been your escape from days
of discomfort: settling on the sofa,
submitting yourself to Nintendo.
It is entertaining as I watch

your fingers dance in confusion
on the control pad, fulfilling your every
strategy. Much more fascinating than the graphics
and sounds of this diversion you play. I enjoy
your complacency found in no-new technology.
But sometimes even the game causes you

preoccupation. And so I intervene:
“Place it here, move it there, rotate a little more...”
Then we both smile slyly as we witness
the mass of blocks on the screen
gradually collapse.

How I wish reality were as easy.

(For Rowena, my mother)