Friday, April 13, 2007

from A Field Guide to Domesticity

Today, the children are hysterical.
What I mean to say is that
the children are in hysterics.
I don’t mean to quantify the children
or the children's behavior --
just objectively describe it.

The bus (too) toddles aimless around Queens.

Perhaps it is because she uses the wheelchair
that he cannot decipher her body language.
He calls to her, Miss, Miss,
and when she turns from him,
Hey you! Wheelchair!
She obviously doesn’t want this
particular bus.

The children watch the mother’s face change.
The mother moves in strange directions.
Her body is never silent,
she is angular and confusing,
but the children know that look too well,
and they breathe a sigh of relief that it’s not
pointed right at them.

She’s about to blow.

Her desperation to make the world right.

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