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There is no training these
grinning children who drop drawers
to piss streams that mix with leaky
refrigerator pools on hopscotch tiles.
Illumined puddles meet shouts
and her old man thinks she's crazy.
Lipped stub drops greasy out of his mouth,
he grinds the butt, whispering, not heartlessly,
only a single word, "Shit".
The only charm dangles in rows
like rainbows scaled from fresh trout,
Labor Day surprise, deep fried to crisps
where they all chewed, at least
five minutes and still choked.
Premature sun surrounds the aroma
of coffee, a drizzled mourning.
Space lines the insides of a bra,
hanging out. Maggie's boob detached itself
as the urine ran with insects' crawl,
a kind of frozen picture, bearing the marks
of shortcomings still in progress.
Embarrassed, she scooped up the boob,
placed it in her housecoat, walked out,
though, not before being stopped
by her children to play
a game of twenty questions.
She turned on them,
stating through clenched jaws
about messes to clean up,
suddenly realized the boob was out
of hiding and shaking in their faces.
Her mate suggested that she go back
to bed to try getting up again.
A few hours later, as Maggie slept,
her old man inched past her room,
picked up a mass, the size of a pie slice,
tossed it where a dull thud sounded
to gray areas tingling in their numbness.
Poem copyright ©
Sarah Wilson 2002. All rights reserved.
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