She Did, He Didn’t, I May

I didn’t water today.
Tired, I just want rain
to take care of things,
the way I wanted my mother
to do the cleaning of toilets,
the boiling of juicy roasts,
my father the fixing
of broken-down
everything.

Now I’m a wet sky
in a pinched hose,
a dry, stained white brush,
one chicken served plain,
the Universal Idiot’s Guide
to Impossible Repair.
I give so many directions
to ward off lazy pain,
my diagrams flare.

2012