Family Dinner
       

In this game,
the children sit
on a blanket.

They have bowls
filled with gravel,
plates heaped with grass
torn from the fields.

Would you like some?
they ask. This is dinner.

Plenty of minerals!
Picked fresh today!

Then one child sighs,
and announces:
I hate my life.

This is the father.

Or maybe the mother.

Who knows, really?

They take turns
saying it until
the doctor arrives

with his hand
full of pills.

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Copyright © 2021 Michael Bazzett All rights reserved
from Bennington Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission