WOMAN TRAPPED BY SCREAMING CHILDREN

Like the Kenyan woman who killed her kids
and ate bits but was only charged
with indigestion (she was deemed
too disturbed to be guilty of murder
given evidence of her dim sum

banquet) this supper-class woman so full
of tuition, therapy and chocolate
is being driven stork raving mad
by her kinder but won’t admit it
to the higher authorities. Guilt

hisses scratching the scratching
post of Freud: anxiety, adrenaline,
the spinal tap of drive. Grin
like a grimace, hug a hollow
buoy, afloat but empty, she dallies

her days lashed to garden-variety
compulsions: pee stains and fevers,
dead fish, done dishes, when to sleep
and to rise, when to button up and when
to zip, and zip zip zip

her wunderkind marionettes, plunging
back through mammaries to the fragile
rigor of her toddlerhood. And when
the gig is up and these kids graduate,
uncertain to return, the tail-chasing

ceremony will begin in earnest.
Say the word nature and know there’s nothing
yon can do. Damselfly, distressed
in her Lexus, airbags on their triggers,
waiting for the invisible collision.