The Fury of Overshoes

I woke up and I'm four years old this morning. I need a nanny.

First, Lux Interior, frontman for the Cramps, one of my favorite bands ever, died.

Then I read the Joe Weil poem, "Love Poem for My Mother Clare," which recalls so exactly my grief over my deceased gothfather in its invocations that I can't stuff the loss back in the box and shoulder my adult responsibilities, like copyediting.

It's winter and the whole world is frozen and even the warm puppy snoozing on my lap can't take away the ache entirely.

This poem by Anne Sexton is what I read when I spontaneously regress.

The Fury of Overshoes

They sit in a row
outside the kindergarten,
black, red, brown, all
with those brass buckles.
Remember when you couldn't
buckle your own
overshoe
or tie your own
overshoe
or tie your own shoe
or cut your own meat
and the tears
running down like mud
because you fell off your
tricycle?
Remember, big fish,
when you couldn't swim
and simply slipped under
like a stone frog?
The world wasn't
yours.
It belonged to
the big people.
Under your bed
sat the wolf
and he made a shadow
when cars passed by
at night.
They made you give up
your nightlight
and your teddy
and your thumb.
Oh overshoes,
don't you
remember me,
pushing you up and down
in the winter snow?
Oh thumb,
I want a drink,
it is dark,
where are the big people,
when will I get there,
taking giant steps
all day,
each day
and thinking
nothing of it?