poem of the day 07.24.13

dragons

she wants a book on fairies

and wimpy kids

no, dragons, she tells me

as she chases me around the place

she’s been chasing me since we opened

books about monsters

books about mythology

books by james patterson written by other people

but still for kids

definitely books about dragons, she says

my kid likes to read

about dragons, i answer

but not matter-of-factly

while i calculate that new york city

public school children

have forty-two days until they go back to school

i wonder if i’ll still be alive by then

well, she says

she folds her arm and extends a leg

and i pity the person who had to go home to this woman

who has the task of pleasuring her

do you or do you not have any books about dragons?

i don’t know anything about dragons, i tell her

oh, just like you didn’t know anything about monsters

or mythology

or who wrote the latest james patterson novel

is there anything that you do know? she says

i know that i wish i was a dragon

i don’t tell her

a big fire breathing mother with horns on my tail

and yellow teeth

and i’d like to fly in here and scorch everything

including the books by patterson

then i’d like to pick this woman up by her neck

and swallow her whole

before flying off into the overcast sky

burning the landscape as i go

but i’m not a dragon

i’m barely half-human by mid-week

and today it is one-hundred degrees out

by the weekend i’ll have my electric bill

my rent bill and my student loan bill

i’ll need to keep this job for the foreseeable future

so i say to her

what about magic?

i know a ton of books about magic.