June Cleaver's Mother's Day ..

June Cleaver - ideal "Mom" in 1953

permed hair, lipstick on her 
morning cup of Maxwell House coffee

 adjusting Ward's tie, 

fixing box lunches for Wally and Beav

And so her routine began,

she wore dresses mid calf length
Mrs. Congeniality;
but we never saw the worst 
it could be -

no burnt bacon, dirty house,

no clutter, wrestling a vacuum

only dialog squeaky clean 

Stories revolved around
 the family's
 idiosyncrasies -

boys given to mischief 
and growing pains,

Life's problems simply 
were not complex -

Norman Rockwell model family

as if no bigger issues

existed in reality  
As in the Ozzie & Harriet Nelson

show, lessons were taught -

right, wrong, what how and why,

taking the higher road,

molded by morals 
of an era gone by

where underneath sleeping embers

complex carbons 
of truth do lie

We knew Beaver's buck teeth,

 Wally quite the good looking guy,

supporting players 
let us sympathize in comedy

We loved Lumpy's 
gullibility,

Eddie Haskel's supposed 
juvenile delinquency

perspective reveals -

real lives don't compare,

with fantasy except in dreams 
and on TV