The XX Factor: What women really think.

Friday Night Lights, in verse

Emily, Meghan and I have been conducting a dialogue in Slate for fellow Friday Night Lights addicts. One of my entries discussed the house of Tim Riggins. It inspired this poem "in the style of Billy Collins" from Ann Scanlan, a reader in Ireland.

The Perfect Chaos of Tim Riggins' Living Room

The cardboard beer girl

stands and surveys

the perfect chaos

of Tim Riggins' living room:

yesterday's dishes and last week's laundry

empty bottles and crushed cans

the place for everything is

wherever it was dropped or tossed.

A teenage boy stumbling through

another moody day, looking for

some kind of a family life in a home

where beer is a major food group.