Eat everything on your plate
or you won’t get dessert!
How often did you push
your food from one
spot to another, piling
spinach, squishing
it so that it looked
like it was disappearing?
How often did you feed
the dog when Mom and Dad
weren’t looking?
I bore the scuffs and scratches
of your fork without complaint,
I let you smear gunk
on my face with sticky fingers.
Because I knew that
Mom would wash me clean,
and you would get a bowl
of week-old pale fruit salad.
