DARCY’S PANTOUM

Trained to be invisible yet helpful.
Latchkey kid living beside the tracks.
Console Mom when first marriage flops.
Summer visit Dad’s new family in Maine.

Latchkey kid living beside the tracks.
Help stepmother can and bake cookies.
Summer visit Dad’s new family in Maine.
Cook and waitress at grandma’s parties.

Help stepmother can and bake cookies.
Bars on apartment windows and doors.
Cook and waitress at grandma’s parties.
Ache for a first boyfriend.

Bars on apartment windows and doors.
Scrawl “Hi Phillip” on stepdad’s desk.
Ache for a first boyfriend.
Crush on Mr. Jadwin in English.

Scrawl “Hi Phillip” on stepdad’s desk.
Cheer up Mom during second marriage.
Crush on Mr. Jadwin in English.
Weep when stepdad moves out.

Cheer up Mom during second marriage.
Console Mom when first marriage flops.
Weep when stepdad moves out.
Trained to be invisible yet helpful.

Kirby Michael Wright was born and raised in Hawaii. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from SFSU.

Image:M&A, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons