The Perfectionist's Wife

To demonstrate the floor was clean enough
to eat off, he dumped his bowl of oatmeal
onto ceramic, knelt beside the buttery
mess, and lowered his head to feed.

He hadn’t imagined this would be hard.
Pain lodged in his elbows and knees,
his nose in the way, his teeth
scraping tile, lip muscles weak

from using forks and spoons. Worse,
his discerning tongue found a cat hair
after he’d scrubbed the floor to set an example
for his lazy wife. Rump in the air,

he turned into a donkey, determined to win
the battle of cleanliness versus sloth.
Meanwhile, his wife, in bed, still fed the baby,
her nipple plugging his toothless mouth

as he slugged warm milk. She heard
her husband bray and saw their cow, the one
that had begun to grow wings, gauge the distance
between the pasture and the morning crescent moon.

Published in New Welsh Reader