Given the long length of some of the lines in this poem, we suggest reading it on a computer screen or in the landscape orientation on your phone. Even so, depending on the size of your phone, line breaks may occur that adversely affect the look and experience of the poem.

In order to view the poem as the author intended it to appear, we strongly encourage you to click on this link (which will take you to a PDF): Toddler at Grandma’s

Toddler at Grandma’s
Zack Rogow

Mommy says I can play with anything I can reach so I’m knocking down every single stacking block

Mommy still paying attention
Yes

Time to grab each plastic lid out of the cabinet and
fling it as far as I can

Mommy’s watching
Perfect

Now I’m opening all the books on the shelf and flipping them every which way
Grandma says No
don’t throw the heavy ones with the color pictures
Too bad
Maybe when the Bigbigs aren’t looking

Grandma takes me to look at the cookies baking in the don’t-touch
The cookies looks like Mommy’s eyes

But where is that Mommy
Nowhere I can see
I’m running into every room I’m starting to cry I’m even looking in the bathroom What
is she doing in there without me

She’s at the sink
I hug her leg tight as I can
She reaches down and lifts me
My check against her soft cheek
I smell that yummymommysmell
So good

OK let me go now let me go
I have to take all he metal pans out of the cupboards and crash them to the floor

—
Zack Rogow is the author, editor, or translator of more than twenty books or plays. HIs ninth book of poems Irreverent Litanies, was published by Regal House. He is also writing a series of plays about authors. The most recent of these, Colette Uncensored, had its first staged reading at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and ran at the Canal Cafe Theatre in London, as well as in San Francisco and Portland. He serves as a contributing editor of Catamaran Literary Reader.

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Have you read these poems:
Chameleon Culture by Richard Eric Johnson
Earth and Sky by Ellen Roberts Young

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