Shane Schick is a freelance writer whose work spans the worlds of business, technology, marketing and fashion. His poems have appeared in Juniper: A Poetry Journal, Stanchion Zine and Trampoline Poetry, among others. He lives in Whitby with his wife and three children. More: ShaneSchick.com/poetry. Twitter: @ShaneSchick

Goblin Mode

The only portion of the driveway
I would shovel, if not for you,
would be the side where the car sits.

Kraft Dinner would be cooked
and eaten out of the same pot,
not necessarily placed on a table.

Calls from the doctor’s office
would ring in vain, appointments
as perpetually unmade as the bed.

I chuckled when your mother
asked to take home the bones
from our turkey dinner that night

to make soup, but is it really
any different from the marrow
of my early, half-assed life

and the savory broth you could
already smell, that your presence
here has kept constantly simmering?