At War

She screamed into the telephone
and I said slow down I can't
understand you. Something about her dad
being psycho, you know how that goes.
It wasn't a good time to talk.  I was, at the
time of her shrieking, smack in the middle of
a check out line: Next!  Everyone heard her
yelling and laughed.  When she called back,
she was still going strong and oh boy again
I had to say slow down please.  Teenage girls
and their psycho fathers--the one child who lives with me
and hates me from time to time, the other older one
who has only now started to once again live
with me and maybe hates me
from time to time, too, and both
of them using me as the spindle post on
their stereophonic turntable and there
they go, around and around, faster and
faster, louder and louder, and soon
they will turn into butter
just like Little Sambo before them
and having become butter
not girls
that could be the end
of that phone call and
whew even now I feel like
sighing in
relief.