'Bitte, Mama' by Lisa Muschinski

Spring came slow this year, dragging its feet like one of us kids at the grocery store, still in our cleats, shin guards sticking to our legs with coagulated sweat, but now you roam Home Depot alone & they’ve got some pink and purple perennials in their outdoor section even though it’s cold out, the spread an appetizer of spring, & you can’t help yourself from bringing a few home, even if you’ll have to take them in at night, even if you’re here for some other project (maybe the guest bedroom shower, maybe the upstairs bathroom, maybe the sprinkler system, maybe the porch’s paint job), but you’re used to taking care of us all at once, of spreading yourself into four, & you’re not here for spring but now spring is here, & it came for you because you’ve willed it this way, for you are the creator of life, the organizer of time, meine Mama, & all this to say bitte, Mama, please, Mama, make me something great.