NOW THAT YOU’RE GONE
at least until the end of the first semester,
who’s going to yank the sheet from the mattress,
click the nubs of new bicuspids,
if you’re not around to dream?
When your dolls escape into their miniskirts,
and the night improvises on its black guitar,
who’ll be left to ask for water, have to pee,
have to pee and ask for water?
Now whose friends will want to sleep over?
(While the rest of us are sleep with.)
Bunk beds, big plans, all that teeter-totter chatter,
who’s going to fart, guffaw and giggle,
need one more blanket, five more minutes, please?
When the subs dive, the searchlights flare,
and our doors, half-open, suddenly close,
who’s going to be in the next room snoring?—
a few mumbles, an occasional grunt,
so we’ll know what is safe and what is here.
—from Rattle #14, Winter 2000
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Thom Ward: “When not writing, teaching, or editing poetry, I enjoy running after soccer balls and baseballs my four-year-old has set in motion. That kind of workout serves as training for what my teenagers have required of me, namely to serve as Excutive ATM-on-Wheels.” (web)
