CLARA SILVERSTEIN
Out to Buy Milk
I'm following this road,
my windshield spattered with salt,
snowbanks slumped at the edges,
a red stutter of stop signs.
What I'm carrying is useless,
Kleenex and a butterscotch drop
that escaped from cellophane,
change rattling by the gearshift.
Exhaustion trails me:
I'm staggering
under the weight of your smallness,
your serrated voice, your sticky
tracks up and down my arms,
your plastic animals, slimy
with drool, your hunger fishtailing
from blankets I lay gently on you.
My path is scraped clean
by plows, the distance like a picture
I once drew with too much white space,
the background filled with scribbles. 
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