I like how the little one reaches out for me first. The crawling motions of her knees gliding in a storm of hurried interest along the star-struck pads of her feet. Unthinking towards the jagged edges I’ll hurt her with. Or the leftover pail of water streaming over her head from what little is left of me still. When up there on the table, I am half the color of the sun. Still beautiful if only curtained with a note of once kissing the lips of some worldly prince and his large amount of sums. But down here, I am a puzzle waiting to be swept. Unnoticed still, except for a toddler and her sagging overnight pair of soiled diapers. “But where’s mama,” I want to say. “Where’s your human with the breakfast of eggs and a feed sack of corn, waiting to be strewn in the yard for the soft chirping of chicks?”
“Where’s your mama?” I want to say. Because I don’t want to hurt you or the sweet fingers that bring me along the backseat ride of your daddy’s Ford truck. Not when I’ve heard the scrambling of your words, confusing a moose for the sweetness of juice, as you picked me up like a linen of towels lapping in the current of easterly winds. When it was only yesterday, I was a placeholder for your set of paintbrushes, and the lone stem of lilac plucked fast and harshly for the wondrous taking. Whole and filled with an amorous delight of bearing a random of goods, just enough for the specific world of being just two.
“Where’s your mama?” I want to say. Because I’ll only slice you up like a twirling of a dancer’s blade breaking into a thin sheet of ice. No longer bearing the familiar touch of glass once beautifully spun. I’ll prick you clean, and cut right through, like little pieces of knives waiting for that first, iron taste of blood. With no teeth and yet still poise for that very first eruptive cry for help. Seeping into the first fracture of skin and maybe into the still-growing lineup of bones.
“Mama,” you’ll say. “Mama, Mama.” And I’ll be the one to blame. Taking a second fall that never pushes back against a tide of shits and mouthful of fucks. Nameless and easy to point out the pangs of absence and guilt. Useless and replaced with something even more robust and diligently cared for.
With no more car rides and watercolor of blues, painting the rest of a bird-filled sky. No more hiding Cheerios and snippets of hair cut from a doll or two. No more bath time and the large pouring of suds on the soaked, black curls of your hair anymore. And no more pickings of flowers that carry the roses and lilacs from the pretty garden, where grandpa now rests upon his stays.
“Mama,” you’ll say.
And I’ll be gone tomorrow before you awake.
Tossed and emptied into a landfill of others,
waiting to be plundered
and forgotten in waste.