Homemaker
Animal aches live in your belly.
Susurration of hearts in an oblong
vase on the kitchen island. Boil the
bear delivered in an oak box. Pick
its fur from your incisors. Outside, a
snowglobe of suffering bursts into
star crystals. You want to hide, but
this weird world whispers your
name.
Sure, Call Me a “Homemaker”
One-eyed cockroach sips toothpaste on the sink. Brazen blackbird bites my baby’s nose
and toes. A cumulonimbus fills the kitchen sink with tears and lightning bolts. Bigfoot’s
hair clogs the shower drain, so the bathroom becomes a lake, where Medusa’s snakes
now want to mate. Shakespeare pens a tragedy with alphabet magnets, grape jelly.
Curious George swings from ceiling fan, one foot-hand squirting bananas across the
room like torpedoes. Cupid’s arrow jammed in the toaster, bent and blazing, smoke
alarm blaring. Just then, my mother-in-law phones—she’s on her way.
After the 12th Bedtime Story
Open the night sky like a medicine
cabinet,
inside you’ll find God sitting on a stool,
elbows on knees, chin resting on hands,
glowing in the light of a moon-shaped
night light, listening to a toddler whose
weary parents have sent him to bed,
listening to a toddler’s run-on sentences,
run-on stories, run-on suggestions—that
with a flick, burst into meteorite showers,
thousands of word particles burning in a
glorious celestial flourish.
6 a.m.
A milky quiet,
doughy stillness,
refrigerator’s hum,
my pen scratching
against paper,
the house
inhaling & exhaling
with sticky slumber,
my toddlers’ lollipop
dreams.
I’ll imbibe this moment,
melt it on my tongue,
savor each morsel, molecule
of peace
for when tiny voices
start calling
Momma,
Mommy,
Mom
when small humans
hailstone their
emotions, needs,
desires, upon me
I’ll swallow
the hailstones, chunk by chunk
until they melt
inside me, on top of me,
around me—
I will
drown.
This moment
will be the straw
through which I sip
oxygen.
I’ve never been so
elated to be awake alive
at 6 a.m.
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