Punished by the Fates

So I wrote this poem today while Dexter was napping:

At Barnes and Noble

I’ve taken my son out in public with a cold, 
and at any given time his nose is crusty
or oozing or both. When he coughs 
without covering his preschool mouth,
you can hear something wet echoing
in the dank cave of his chest. Even his eyes
are red and boggy. We’re in the kids’ section 
where there’s a train table and other boys
who are learning how shitty it is to share.
I brought sanitizer and I meant to ice
my son’s hands, but I didn’t. I guess I looked 
around and kind of said the hell with it.
Which is not to say that I don’t cry
about lost children. It was just that we couldn’t 
stay home any longer. You know how a mosquito 
can find your ear as you’re finally falling 
backwards into sleep? You know how
that one house fly keeps buzzing and thwacking 
against the pane, but you can never find it? 
Preschoolers make noises like that.
Not the same tonally, but the same
annoyingly. Which is not to say that I’d want
to crush my son like a bug I really love,
only that I wanted him to stop making the sounds 
he makes when he’s trapped in the house.
And not that I would want any harm to befall
the preschoolers who keep trying to take the train 
he’s peacefully running along the track, but I’m
a little too worn down to worry about mere 
rhinovirus, and if some pint-sized bully
wants to snatch that engine from my boy’s
germy hands? Well, it’s not exactly
a pox upon him. 

And then when he woke up from his nap, he puked on me four times. The poem's morality is questionable, but it was meant to be a little confessional and a little funny. I think the fates are punishing me for taking such an irreverent tone. I think this retribution, in the fluid form of vomit, was meant to remind me to never take my son's health for granted. There are other things one can be glib about.