Michael Bazzett

FAMILY DINNER

In this game,
the children sit
on a blanket.

They have bowls
filled with gravel,
plates heaped with grass
torn from the fields.

Would you like some?
they ask. This is dinner.

Plenty of minerals!
Picked fresh today!

Then one child sighs,
and announces:
I hate my life.

This is the father.

Or maybe the mother.

Who knows, really?

They take turns
saying it until
the doctor arrives

with his hand
full of pills.

MICHAEL BAZZETT is the author of four collections of poems, most recently The Echo Chamber (Milkweed), as well as a chapbook, The Temple (Bull City Press). His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, and The Sun. His verse translation of the Mayan creation epic The Popol Vuh (Milkweed) was longlisted for the National Translation Award and named one of 2018’s ten best books of poetry by the New York Times.