12 minutes til, or 17 if 5 minutes late isn’t too late but
still
i can’t leave
them waiting too
long but 12 minutes is one load of wet clothes
to dry and one dirty to wet or at least a start
and picking up 6 books and two intimate friends, one
missing his button eye for the fourth time (fix that)
up
the stairs, there are the socks thrown up and away
out of the kitchen, clean and scooped up and dropped into doorways
9 minutes and one little boy who played hard into his own
little boy stench, needs into the shower
first, capture
over the army of cars and parts and roads and worlds and intergalactic love of mechanics
I have 7
minutes and both wiggling arms, all the filthy fingers and two cheeks that might belong to someone I know
under
grime, this layer through the house and I’m counting
cups in the bedroom, 8, how when there’s a rule against one and I count again—all mine—all mine
naked
4 minutes to leave and the cups need washed and he needs tickled clean, he knows and giggles, runs past
when
the glass inside cup 5 unsettles and dives
giving the sink frightening
new possibilities
it’s all there, every shattered slice
in the sink reminding
he’s naked and safe
10 toes, 2 eyes
time to clean it all up
from the perspective
of minutes as interesting and irrelevant
unless weighted by nothing counted
more than this one smile
sputtering, “where’s the towel”
we wrestle half through the shower door
til i give in, step in
all the easier to lather his hair, inspect a knee, find
what is that
lurking behind an ear
before whipping him into a towel and a scoot
so i can face the sink and schedule
laughing at the two inches of wet up my ankles
and anticipating faces when,
I’ll arrive unrepentant, late lost
shattered in the sink
by time