A Strange Creature

You work hard
Indulge each wish, longing, pulsation,
Fear,
You thumb through and finger stray hairs
Run a plastic blue comb over tangled strands
After steaming shower and soothing suds
Pull nightshirts over small heads
Put the toothpaste on the brushes and run them over tiny teeth in put-on voices
Of old men, opera singers, and gallant ladies
Tuck under pink and Spiderman covers on the
Cleanest sheets you can muster this week.

The kitchen counters are strewn with spaghetti sauce dishes,
Overturned spices,
Bread crumbs,
Smeared and spattered kettles
And pieces of old popcorn.

You stuff your hands, stiff, into the still cold water
Silently praying for some sort of respite,
Scrubbing, scrubbing soap and grime, grit and tears
All blending together under your chewed fingernails:
You didn't have time to properly clip them.

The stars flicker: candles in the soft, buzzing, midnight blue God project in the great beyond.

You think of wasted years,
Wasted dreams,
Wasted food and water and old smashed pumpkins
And ex-boyfriends
And tarnished teaspoons
And calling your mother.

The dish drain drips rhythmically into the sullen stainless steel of the much-abused sink:
You use it for everything.

Your son's reading light is blazing red, glowing harsh into the brown shadows around the bunk beds.
Your daughter is snug but the screen is burning near her wide chocolate eyes.
You think about sex
And reading the book you so wanted to finish
And working on your writing
But your body is weary and there is no time for wanton things.

Your fingers are wrinkled as the covers float and shift over your bare shoulders.
The night is quiet, still, lonely
And instead of longing for alone-ness you feel in the pit of your belly
A longing for touch and closeness and little-girl hair on falling hard on your clavicle
And the tugging at your sleeve that asks for a turkey sandwich with the crusts cut off
And you laugh a little at yourself, and your strange-ness
And the creature you have somehow unwittingly become.