Growing Pains

Someone stop the children, they are bursting out of their bodies, throwing plates of food on the floor, grabbing the dog sticky with fingers. They are coming, they are coming through. No morning is too early, no afternoon long enough. Someone put them to bed already. They want to jump over the railing, climb the grown up world. Someone feed them, there are peels split, spit back, bags torn open and emptied so they do not fall out. Someone warn them, mothers disappear and again, this is to survive, and about fathers, also. On a good day the children can be seen for miles. They grow too large for this story. The little girls hand down their dresses. The little boys won’t take off their pajamas. Turn the clocks back. Cut the night into small pieces. Tell them it’s sleep.