It’s only ten o’clock
and already I’ve been called
a thundering cunt
at least three times.
Her curses are washing me clean,
clean as the smiles of my son
who is entering language so joyously
as he sits miscounting his toes.
The birds at the feeder outside
all seem interchangeable,
I can’t keep account
of their flitters and squabbles,
their jostling for more.
And tonight outside of
this very same window
the darkness will move
with its various faces
and the stars
which are countless look down
on a speck of a woman
who somehow is standing
outside of herself
and no longer keeps score.