Kindergarten

I handed my child over today

To a tidy woman in a cerise dress.

She knew what she was about, had

Taken children dozens of times,

But I was a virgin at letting my child go.

The bewildered face, the

Chubby hand hot in my own,

The toy construction trucks

Lined up neatly in a corner 

Competing in his flush cheeks with

The desire to hold onto me 

Until the last second of the last

Minute of the last hour; whereas I,

Evil one, had craved this moment,

Imagined its freedoms tumbling like dominoes, 

The coolest drink after months in the desert.

I watched the woman lead him away.