Poetry Exercise #2: Sounds

Self-Warning

Bored housewives and bothered babies—
Weak heads seeking warm cheeks.
Babies coo their sleep; toddler chirps a nursery rhyme.
Toddler tips its cup and body; mother saves like heroic newspaper article.
Waltzing bus drifts like a jellyfish through intersections.

It’s the homecoming bus from an eight-hour day.
It’s the jellyfished vocals repeating from the toddler’s orange-juice-soaked mouth.
It’s the orange juice she tips on my shoes.
It’s the baby that howls waking from the bus’s epileptic path.
It’s the mother who ignores, continues talking to another wooden housewife.
It’s her new shoes they talk about.

It’s that I want people to stop breeding.