Community Convalescence

Those abrasions on her cheeks

were said to be the result of being

fucked from behind and rammed

into the rough shag fibers en vogue

in 1978 by her father’s friends

in her own home on a school-year

weekend so full but empty

with the mother gone

through the decade’s attachment to divorce

and no mention of the mustachioed

father—looking like the era’s TV cops—

but Facebook heals all wounds

even to the face, all the way to the depths,

so she smiles with a daughter

as a “friend suggestion”

among the hundred possible pix

and opportunities to post

every mild success and hope for a toast

by the virtual audience

for whom deep-napped carpets

and their burns have cooled to ice

with a chuckle at a style so passé.