the mom’s plea (in progress)

Another cup of tea
I didn’t get to drink
perches on the coffee table,
a cold, still pool.

My new robe, an anniversary
present from the man
I married, smells of soured milk.
My old robe often smelled
of sex and look
where that’s gotten us.

I rummage about in drawers
-- something to wear –
the knowledge that today, again,
I will not get a shower, sharp around me
like a noon sun.

I am the mom.

Do not, therefore, bore me
with your shy attempts at art,
your designer poetry
in building blocks of careful vocabulary,
your plodding articles with obvious
conclusions. Throw yourself
into it; you don’t have time
to waste and neither do I. My mind
is splintered in a million directions:

poopy diapers laid out before me
like accident sites, cats in want of attention,
the fight I had with the man I married –
the robe gifter – at 4:00am this morning.

You’d do best to wow me –
short, swift bursts of splendor or grit –
not comet showers and grand finales,
but the stuff of every day, the
underbelly of an oatmeal breakfast,

so that I may see a truth, step out
of my life for an instant, throw back
my head in amused recognition,
like I did before
life became a quest
for a hot cup of tea,
and be back on the job again
by the time the baby is done
with his nap.