The Nanny

“Alright, runt.

Let's get your little a*s dried off,”

she says from the lid of the toilet

as she puts her cigarette out

on the head of the floating rubber ducky.

For breakfast she makes us

a pile of fluffy brown pancakes

and covers them in sticky syrup,

even though my father says

sugar is a gateway drug.

At the park she kicks the pigeons

that get too near.

“They got more germs on 'em

than the bathroom door

at O'Neil's Pub.”

A telemarketer calls

while we are playing Monopoly

and she says some words,

that when I repeat later,

cause my mother's knees to buckle.

My father calls her a “firecracker.”

My mother calls her “uncouth.”

She calls herself a “free thinker.”

I call her mama sometimes

but she says I should quit.

When I grow older I will understand

that life didn't go exactly

the way she had planned.

But for now,

we are happy.