They prefer if you don’t come in the normal entrance,
Where your actions and demeanor may generate
A semblance of disquietude and anxiety for those clients
With simple dislocations and the de riguer colicky infants.
Instead, you are directed to an inconspicuous doorway
Around the back by the dumpsters and empty pallets
To an unadorned room with to fill out the requisite paperwork
(Which proves quite difficult because you’re shaking;
Most likely because the room is so cold,
Or the folding chairs prove ancient and unstable),
Upon receipt of which they allow you
(Although this go-round
There’s no inked footprints or photo provided)
To take your baby back home.

As children, we learned those truths we needed to know
At the feet of claymation wise men
(Proffered to us through the good graces of Rankin and Bass)
That under-appreciated misfits will receive their reward in due time,
That Mommy and Daddy will sit,
Smiling as without a care in the world,
At the kitchen table with brother and sis
Over a piping hot breakfast forever and ever, amen
Before they adjourn to the shiny tree
Surrounded by legions of dolls, brigades of fire engines
(For Santa shall never disappoint any good boy or girl),
That children shall always bury their parents.
I now know that the snowman lied,
And that when he is removed from refrigeration,
He shall not reappear as the strong, substantial man of snow,
But become merely a puddle,
Then mist rising from the sidewalk,
As invisible as the ditties children sing
While jumping double-dutch,
As fleeting as a hug in the dark
After you’ve chased the monsters from under the bed.