The Visitor
A poem
She won’t brush her teeth
fearful of the mosquito hawk
hovering above the bathroom mirror
and though I assure her it means no harm,
in fact this flimsy collaboration of air and legs
protects us, she backs away in a violet
old-timey nightgown shaking her head,
and mutters It’s evil and I hate it.
I shoo the mosquito hawk toward the window.
It ignores me and flies into the shower,
bops its unseeable head against the tile wall
like a concert goer. Quickly, it changes its mind
and circles the leaky showerhead.
My daughter screams when I reach gently for it,
It can’t hurt us, I promise,
while it slips past my extended arm
with the ease of a bantamweight, and flies over my head,
hovering in the air, a leggy halo
oblivious to the chaos its presence is inciting.
Now the cat has joined in, yowling throatily.
My daughter stamps her bare feet,
Kill it already!
Let’s give it one last chance, I say,
and grab a toy wand leaning against the toilet.
I swing it back and forth in the contested air,
trying to compel our visitor toward the window,
which of course it ignores,
as we all do
when directed toward salvation.