Edit 1: Bedtime Clichés

[Truerenigma]

Bedtime Clichés

Her liver-spotted hands
run warm water through dry hair,

This is a strong image. What's difficult for me  is the unpossessed hair. Is it ours or hers? The question itself isn't the problem; it's just awkward phrasing. I know there's a pretty good two beat rhythm going here though and that a possessive pronoun would throw it out a little, but it's sort of strange to see phrases like these without a possessive. One almost imagines inanimate hair. Like a wig on a mannequin or something like that. 

massaging soap into our scalps
until lather dribbles over wincing eyes.

Here we are again with oddly disembodied eyes. Other than that it's striking.

The fragrance of green apple promises
a new age of creation. Before we whine,

The new age of creation bit went kinda out there for me. Just threw a huge abstraction into the mix with a clumsy metaphor. I think if you stay in the concrete the symbolism associated with these images will do the heavy work for you. I absolutely love the first line of the two, as well as "Before we whine " at the break. Very powerful image invocation here.

she takes both thumbs to wipe away
the bubbles while she hums a lullaby.

Today's clothes are strewn across
ceramic tiles; its fabric is a phrase

full of sand, smelling of the sea, and
ketchup-stained. Incarnations picked by her

are folded on the sink. And the guise
of childhood convinces us that

we are the idea.

All very good for me,  except the last line. We are the idea? I was hoping for something real. Something solid. Something tangible.

Thanks for posting.