Diorama (woman given all the children)
       

Perhaps they're pretending to be weak minded?
Perhaps they've been pounded into an allegory like spikes?

Seven children walk into a snow-dead forest, and six crows fly out.

Maybe the children are horses or stools for mounting horses?
I've stood on them.
I've brushed the quivering dumbness of their coats.

They look like they've committed crimes in other states—
vegetable, liquid.

Perhaps they're the bars of a jail or the main points in a treaty? If you see them,
tell them to come home.
It's time for supper.

They're so crudely emblematic:
this one is fire, this one water, here earth, here semen.
Don't forget stupidity, stomach acid, and steel. I suppose, though,
these are the materials one needs to build a strong ship.

Where do you think they're planning to go?

Perhaps I become topographical and elaborate
when they require an odyssey to endure?
Perhaps I become an arrow for them to spin
when there's only one way out?

I'm living in someone's house, folding linens,
a long row of children damp and pupal beside me in bed each night.
Before I can close my eyes, I'm supposed to mend three dresses
and attend a long series of negotiations. Instead I consent immediately
to your destruction, roll over, and blow out the light.

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Copyright © 2019 Catie Rosemurgy All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission