Sara Basrai

Erom

They peer in at the window.

Just another barking crazy mother
dissolving in a flat,
single with 2 children failing,
yes? NO/ yes/ NoYES/No/YES…
we could go on, but we know
the answer is – tick.

Washing erom up, plates, cups, pans.
Suds, she’s pretending bubbles are snow.
She blows. Snowflakes pop
into glass-wearing eyes.

They say as they peer,
“Do/be more, mother!”
(school/ government
bourgeois wo/man
expert/newspaper)
“We're in competition
with other nations…
IHA, ICN, DNI, UKASU…
Put on a nice yellow dress.”

alienation is natural,
she once read when it snowed
so deep the glass vanished.
She’d finished the puzzle
in Sunny Daze Haze.

She always enjoyed word play.

Now she withers
melts, drip-drips, pop-pops
with the suds
No Erom. No more.

They walk away.