Our Last Child’s First Day of School
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When we slip right into sleep, the way smooth
Like sheen from drink, we call that a nocturnal omission.
And when I slid right down from your face to half-mast,
We said I was going down under, and this was Australia,
Equipped with kiwi hair, and this little island
A Zealand, old as the earth and eternal. But
Mostly we perform the paces of parenthood, moving
What was there back to back there, whether
It’s some white doll that looks like trash, or the soiled
Undies flowery enough to wear for three days,
Or the pendulum movement of emptying the dishes
From our sacred dishwasher, that diurnal tick-tock
That grates so. Everything is repetition, from
The snarl of disobedience, to eating the forbidden candy,
To the tormenting of one child by the other,
Until last week on our daughter’s first day of school
We repaired to the room we’re stripping
The paint off and caulking the cracks in,
And there amid the lucky ladder with spread legs just so,
The gentle hair of the paint brush, and the lost
Power Puff Girl maze, we found our way back to bed
And what started this whole thing, that bending without pain,
That startling invention of fingernails, skin
Alert, interested in everything that’s going on
And in, focused, one thing at a time,
And then everything at once.

From A Home for Wayward Girls by Kevin Boyle

New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University, Dept. of English,
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
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