The parenting handbook,
Two worn covers,
With nothing between.
The wisdom missing,
The pages knifed and forked,
And fed to the hungry wind,
A passing parade,
That tosses,
A feast of crumbs,
To the eager.
A mistake, now hindsight,
For the illiterate.
Moments of pure ignorance,
A business card we hand to each other,
Pocket-sized billboards,
Announce our failings.
Damaged goods, mishandling,
Our fragile deliveries,
That can’t be returned.
We,
The cracked and spiderwebbed mirrors,
Reflect our past onto their future.
Court jesters at the front of the class.
Lost,
The bags under our eyes,
Packed with shirt stains, jeans
Straw sucked and faded,
Jackets with broken zippers.
A suit you think is a costume,
One you can’t take off,
Because the work never ends.
The thing every parent knows,
But can’t tell you,
We’re lost to the wind,
And are too busy trying
To find the scattered pieces of ourselves.
