As a parent times arise
when you just don't
quite know if your kid
is truly sick
or if they just don't
want to leave
the warmth of their PJs.
But when I entered
the dim living room
at 6:51 a.m. to find her,
my child, prostrate:
drooped over the sofa
dead in the eyes
slack at the mouth
immobile and listless
as if Dali painted
hot human pancakes
draped on red couch
and not metal and glass
clocks melting into
a rusty-earthed desert.
In this case, I knew
I already knew, I did.
It was so obvious that
she was out for the count
but still I had to try:
"Okay it's school time!"
"Time to get ready!"
"Forty minutes left!"
My cheerful voice
fooled no one.
My partner intervened
calling time of death
on her school day:
"She's not going
a-n-y-w-h-e-r-e
I mean look at her
come on."
And so I sighed
while manifesting
a patient smile
for my now
unfledged charge
and I said
to the heap of skin
that purported to be
my daughter:
"Okay Sweetie,
let's get you
back into bed."
It was when her face
didn't click into
a sly grin of victory
— Bueller? Bueller? —
that, there it was,
reality struck loudly:
tick-tock
this kid is
s-i-c-k
sick.
