My stepson only eats hamburgers
and fries. And chicken nuggets.
Nary a vegetable or piece of fruit. And why
doesn’t he get scurvy and die?
He never goes outside. Zero
exposure to the sun. Just stays in his room
playing video games all day. And why
doesn’t he get rickets and die?
Just look at his room–he hasn’t
cleaned it in over a year. His socks
are so defiled you could stand them up
and watch them defile out the door.
The toxic waste under his bed alone
should have killed him years ago.
Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t
wish him dead. But if he sailed away
on a long sea journey, say,
stuck on board for months on end
with no land in sight and nothing
to do all day but practice
his boating knots, I wouldn’t
miss him. I would wish him
bon voyage and give him a lemon
as a parting gift, for the vitamin C,
if only for his mother’s sake.
Paul Hostovsky’s poems have won a Pushcart Prize and two Best of the Net Awards. He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter.