(Or: I taste my Sour Grapes)

After dreaming what I dream
I wake to my world
as ever surprised:
not having a lover
but having
what I have.

It is spring.
Outside my window the sparrows & starlings
are chirping in sunshine.

It is Saturday.
Inside my mind is my daughter
Dawn who lives with her boyfriend
who doesn’t take care of her.
She is sick with an ear infection.
It is too early to call or bring
her mint tea.

I would like to bring her mint tea.

My Andy & friends are sleeping
all over the living-room floor
in chubby boy bodies.
All of them have been playing
with monsters all night
killing dragons.
One of them is losing
his boy’s voice and gaining a frog’s voice.
One of them is snoring a king’s snore.
Soon they will call me for pancakes
or oatmeal or pudding.

Closer in
on my huge homemade bed
are the cats and the dog.
One cat is bloated with kittens.
The other one is simply fat.
I stiffen my right leg to stretch
and the dog snarls.
They all shift.
They eye each other with dislike.

Now they begin marching over my chest.
It is time for their feeding.

If I had a lover he would not fit in my bed.
He would complain about how demanding
the children and animals are.
He would want me to do something
about all of them.
He would probably yell at me
because
I would not know what to do.
He would probably yell because
I like what it is I do.
He would probably leave me
crying
hunched in my bed
like a lump in the pudding.

1988