The WIC Appointment

The WIC Appointment

I am too tired to help you help me.

I am too tired to remember the words that worked

for the last one of you.

I am too tired to keep up my end of the pretense

that this is a meeting between equals,

or a client being served.

I am a poor woman being bribed with a bag of food

to let the government inspect her child and her life,

and I am too tired to make a good impression.

I am too tired to keep up with your questions 

and my child's questions

all hitting me at the same time

as my child climbs the foot-high child chair in your office

and you look at me in horror for my failure to intervene

because I am too tired to remember 

there is a middle-class virtue of not climbing furniture, 

not anything, not anyone, not anywhere, not ever.

I am too tired to make like a helicopter for your approval.

I am too tired to explain that with two disabled parents

and a playground once a month or less

what a blessing it is this child has learned to use

Chairs, stairs, walls, falls, tumbles, bumbles, and leaps

to embrace a sense of physical self and physical wealth

that is ever so much more important

than flashcards at this or any other age

as I know all too well from having a body that has been

too weak too slow too sick and for so long 

too tired to feel like home.

I am too tired to teach you, too tired to reach you

across the expanse of three feet, one desk, 

and more differences than you can imagine.

Just don't put me through another amateur psych eval.

Don't call CPS because my child climbed a chair.

Don't turn on me because I was too tired
to help you escape
feeling like what you are

an agent of the government

using food as a bribe

to inspect poor parents,

our children,

our lives.