Mammal Twenty

time
and small children
time
to think too much of
it
the child plays
you
squat and ruminate
time
disbursed as mother
apart
from yourself the child
wants
park with you only
you
you travel to park here
child
scrambles you ponder only
me
me but also them only
them
the other mothers who
smile
or do not it does not
matter
now now the minor
face
gapes down the major
slide
does not ask to be
caught
does not beckon
you
climb but you must
watch
for the slide to matter
is
the child right another
query
dashed at the
park

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Ana Maria Caballero was born in Miami in 1981 but grew up in Bogotá, Colombia. She’s a student of poetry at FIU, where she was runner-up for the Academy of American Poets Prize. In 2014 her collection Entre domingo y domingo won Colombia's José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize. Finishing Line Press published Mid- life, her first chapbook, in 2016. Her writing has appeared in journals such as Tupelo Quarterly, Sundog Lit, and CutBank.