1/279: It Begins!

I've decided to continue this poem-a-day business to the best of my ability and write every day for the next 17 squared days! Here's the first. I actually should have posted it yesterday. Off to a rough start...

b&n

1.
Hallway apology guards the mens room.
She pulls backward as the sterile door closes,
wheelbarrow of child in her grasp.
From under a dust tornado chaos
a bowl of crescent moon teeth slips,

I'm sorry, it says Baby Changing Station.

onto the floor
as if to say

my husband,
such a table
he never used.

2.
Storytime.
That boy
has a furry pink leash around his tummy,
makes swimming motions across the hardwood floor,
a mop for impatient puddles
leaking like oil from his mother's good intentions.

3.
Five women each carry 20 oz of latte.
I forget the Canada branded question and remark,
that's a latte of steamed milk.

I recall,
only humans
drink milk after infancy,
and watch her elbow bend into a shelf
of photographs from a time when
everything she needed
was provided by her mother.