Published in Cherry Bleeds in 2007

Milk Carton Poster Child

My mother used to try to lose me in supermarkets.
It played out like this: I'd be dandling over
by the magazines or toys or frenzied lobsters,
Straits of Maine flashing wildly before their eyes
and I'd turn around. She'd be gone.
After a while I knew the drill.
I'd go off to customer service,
where they'd ooh and aah
all over me: little girl lost.

Eventually she'd answer their page
and take me by the hand.
Mom, I'd say on the car ride home,
when will you stop trying to lose me?
I don't know, she'd say, lighting a fresh smoke
shifting gears, sighing. You just keep turning up.