On Swaddling the Baby
Your wife is in the bathroom crying;
she and the baby are finally in the same pitch.
Sleep is the light at the end of a dark tunnel,
wait that’s death, stupid cliched death—it’s all fuzzy
like the blanket you place under the baby. Your wife is sobbing
instructions through the door; you missed
step three again. You begin to fold the baby
like a fitted sheet into an origami crane. What
is step three? The baby is crying
and doesn’t look like a crane. He looks
like a burrito. You ask if your wife wants
Mexican, but the burrito isn’t staying together.
You’ll get beans all over the baby. You go
to the garage for a staple gun.
Your wife is in the bathroom crying;
she and the baby are finally in the same pitch.
Sleep is the light at the end of a dark tunnel,
wait that’s death, stupid cliched death—it’s all fuzzy
like the blanket you place under the baby. Your wife is sobbing
instructions through the door; you missed
step three again. You begin to fold the baby
like a fitted sheet into an origami crane. What
is step three? The baby is crying
and doesn’t look like a crane. He looks
like a burrito. You ask if your wife wants
Mexican, but the burrito isn’t staying together.
You’ll get beans all over the baby. You go
to the garage for a staple gun.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson