We

We

My daughter snatched the ziploc bag
bulging with cookies of generous size,
silver dollar chocolate chips,
and she brought it to her room
where she ate them,
I imagine,
one right after the other
and didn't bother to hide the bag.

That's what she's doing with it.

My spouse wakes up hourly
just to check on it
feed it
let it roll around in his head
like so many loose marbles.
Then wears it around his eyes
as heavy red goggles the rest of the time.

The little one doesn't know
that his milk is laced with it.

And I

I wear it like a backpack
or one of those lead x-ray aprons
that let them see inside you,
shifting the dull pull of it from one arm to the other
bearing it sometimes between the ribs
or behind my lids
or in that hard to swallow knot in the gullet
and I watch it curiously, cautiously, as it goes about its work
careful to hit only one of us at a time,
before landing softly in the quiet spaces between us.