Mobile House

[Darkblue]

It chewed up his nightlight when he was seven.
It was a fretful thing
being seven and in the dark.

Let’s talk about chaos
and how seeing things break has always made me squirm
to think about the toothpaste never going back in the bottle,
the cylindrical permanence of loss.

It never visited except when it wanted something.
It tried to act like people,
losing its head,
tending towards destruction,
slipping down that path again.
Frantic relapse
all over the puny kitchen.

This is what we call camping,
husband said.
This is the real rusted dream.
If he meant rustic, I never corrected him.
But then there’s the rust-tailed squirrel
who snickers when we fight,
acting like he knows.

I found a bowl once in a store
that says it can’t tip over
so I bought it, and then I had a baby
to put the bowl to use.

The two of us, the baby, now boy, and I
sit in the back of husband’s RV while he drives
us all over the photo opp country.
We’re happy like the cross-stitched words, “Home Sweet Home.”

Then squirrel comes in to break my day.
We all lose our heads.
All over the place.