A Mother’s Day

Shushing, hushing, clucking mother tucking the cool sheet's edge snugly beneath the chin--it is a miniature, miserable little chin, a child's odd bony protrusion adorned with circular teaspoons of fleshy stuff, like tiny scoops of ice cream already melting...

Light from the hallway stealing in like an uninvited immigrant, the chin projects its mutant shadow, along with that of the hands--my hands, constantly moving like midnight diggers of a grave...

The chin will sprout visible dark hairs one day, it will enlarge and bring with it the whole jaw, the skull, the brain-encased mysteries of heart and cognition. It might jut out in ignorant rage, it might press gently into another's thinly cushioned forehead, who knows...

Today I am its mother, and although I do not remotely sense maternal joy-swell in my breast or intestines, I suppose that is all a part of it--the matter of fact tired moments of secretly being bored of this creature's growing pains,  sweet sentiment less a memory than a reminder to myself, a warning.

Sometimes I just want to kick the little bastard. I smile, instead, in fraudulent mockery of the-patience-of-a-saint, comb angry hair with my fingers--does he know the fist they struggle not to make?

"Say your prayers," I manage with interior sneer. Abruptly I leave the room, pull closed the door, and as if to obey, my eyes shut.

Breathe, move on, shift to the droning entertainment on t.v.:  opiates, please.