The Cruellest Month

Despot in Diapers

The despot in diapers
has flung dirt at the cat,
there are traces of dirt
round his mouth, he has a
gap-toothed dirty grin.

The tyrant of two
has a vocab of three
words:
no,
why and
mine.
This triad takes him
as far as he needs to go.

The toddling monarch
wields a plastic t-rex
like a sceptre. It is glossy
with drool, and then given to you.

He is reading Dostoevsky
upside down
before waddling to the yard
to dine on snails.

He chucks a wobbly
at the mall; a host
of shoppers hate you;
the mother of all tantrums
in the park, and
others will blame and berate you;

It can be terrible,
when they're two, but then
suddenly they're twelve,
and then twenty,
each age holding terrors
of its own.
.