Member Poem

 
with their bags and parcels
unpack with tales of how they journeyed
there to here, as if their sacrifice
would breach that ever-widening gap,
provide a bridge between our worlds.

We were expecting them. . .
uninvited though they were
as if each and every year
we planned for their arrival.

"We're family," they say, "and staying-in-touch
is even more important now," they add
while testing the boundaries of our estate,
none in particular closed off to them.

And so, as these gatherings go, we offer
our recent harvest, release the corks
of vintage wine, listen to them go on and on
about their mundane lives. . .

but this time, we have vowed, things will 
be different . . .And so we bid them a good night,
sing, "pleasant dreams and pray the bed bugs do not
bite," as we release the drones from their august lair.
 
(Author's Note: This is a revised version of the poem posted for contest 60.)