while his children sleep, the father spins three bowls onto the kitchen table and waits for each to still.  he circles the table as a shell shocked circus dog.  from a box he is scooping handfuls of dry cereal into the bowls when he is informed by a memory how it’s happened that the milk is gone.  gone since the morning before last because a fourth bowl was needed.  his three children can now be heard upstairs shoving each other under the run of the shower.  minutes later three boys wrapped in towels watch as their father gags himself into convulsions on the love seat.  of the three, it’s my towel mother removes to swipe the sick from his mouth.  I get my father a glass of water.  something I’ve done before.  

looking back, I can see the empty bowls.  ahead, the outsourced eating.