ECHOSTENCH

B asks me, does an echo have a stench?

When people talk at me I drop everything
and set my ears to listening.

Panda corrects me from the bedroom
when B asks me a physics question,
okay maybe doesn't correct me but
makes B know she knows answer too.

My parents are so bored they are going
to give themselves the 'Rona sin querer
completely by mistake but for a super
kooky reason like running out of BBQ sauce.

The Lego birdfeeders B and I made are sweet,
but we have since learned that little birds are jerks,
free-loading oafs that will spill lesser seeds
to beak at savory and scintillating flavorpods.

The baby moonwalks on your face if your sleep
in the bed, so I hangnail on the edge like a speedbump,
okay maybe not a speedbump but certainly a retaining wall.

I'm sending emails all day for work, but should I be
monitoring the acronyms for the daily dirty decree?

Should I be out beating cazuelas and bleating vuvuselas
about pandemic blues?

Do I go out then and make more trouble for myself
than I can possibly handle? Should I take advantage
of steals and bargains when the world is losing its
Purell mind, its miniature hand-sanitizer carabiner?

At the very least, you are going to have to support
the water balloon fight on the side of your wife and come
down hard on B when he sloshes an aquatic grenade at her face.

The problem with water balloons as a projectile are that they
are a dollar too late and a dollar too little.

How crisp the explosion of coldwater on my nape, down my shirt,
slaloming down my hirsute belly and quicksilver kissing my nipples.