it gets worse / better
Inspired by a prompt from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s Loving the Self: A Poetry Playshop.
gazing into the fire
asking what do you have to teach me today?
all I hear is
the old toddler parenting mantra
it gets worse
before it gets better
friends
it could always get worse
but what if we willed ourselves to believe
today we’re one day closer to better?
absence limits
while on the Zoom
I see him through the window
pouting
elbows right angles
palms pushing the sky
after the laptop snaps shut
he bursts in
bellowing his high-pitched objections
until I wrap my arm around him
ruffle his hair
remind him how much he means
ask how I can help
and
what does he need?
then he relents
admits he needs nothing
I just was absent too long
that toddler abides
who insistently demanded
Mommy…
anytime I pressed the rectangle of phone
to my curlicue of ear
while he tried to drown out the sounds
of any other needs
to reserve some space
for whatever might bubble up
between his shoulder blades
oh he needs something alright
just like me
