July 5, 2009

My nieces and nephews
are a coal burning train
that has run out of track.

Hands high above their heads
and mouths wide open,
they run through the kitchen

on fire. My mother, more stern
in her grandmothering years
holds them by the scruff

and tries to catch them
in a sack of silence,
but there are holes in

that burlap sack and
through the smallest one,
I hear a steady crescendo,

a five-mouthed wail
arriving.