Graveyards (written in May)

My dad used to call that sofa THE CAREER STARTER. 
But it was only a joke because he'd had it custom made and designed in Texas and he'd ask people to take off their pants to sit on it, especially if they had butt buttons.
Scared they'd scratch the leather, I guess.
It's habit to us, to take off our pants.

Brass brads make curly Qs on the arms, and the color is a distressed, dark caramel that he always called "mauve", even though I think that's purple.
It's three cushions wide, squares not rectangles, and it has cherry wooden legs that look like upside down pears.
The pillows against the back are free, not attached, and there are four of them. They're beautiful, thick with dry, white wrinkles, and I used to suck on their leather corners when I was little, while my dad wasn't looking.

He called it THE CAREER STARTER  because he thought that the prospect of having to sleep on it in his home would force us into wild financial success, the notion too unbearable to consider at any great length.
But I'm sitting here, curled in an armchair, moscato mug well tended, watching Goodwill hobos knick it down the hallway.
Cancer, you know.
It's harrowing, because I don't have a career.