Hire the twelve year old from next door:
Helen of Troy with azure eyes rimmed with black lashes.
She loves kids, her mother says.
She cuddles the two-year-old,
Invites the five-year-old to build puzzles
And ram cars against each other.
Sneak upstairs to the office, the room with boxes and boxes
of pagesandstacksofpoetryessaysunfinishednovels
waiting to be unpacked, sorted, edited, sent to literary magazine limbo.
The ergonomic chair invites perfect posture. Slouch anyway.
Boxed manuscripts are Lucy’s wardrobe,
Alice’s looking glass, and Dorothy’s cyclone all in one.
Who needs Valium when there are words?
Nancy Vona holds an M.A. in creative writing from the University of New Hampshire. Her poems are about childhood, motherhood and everything in between. She has been published in Literary Mama, The Mom Egg, and Rushlight, and lives in Massachusetts with her husband and children. This photo was taken in Times Square right before the Mom Egg’s 2011 launch party.