Glitter

A poem about the curse word of motherhood

Anytime you say it
the eyebrow raise
from other adults.

Glitter?

Gasp!
Surely not.
It gets everywhere.

And yes 
it does.

It hides in corners,
in the seams of the couch,
in the carpet
long after the craft is finished.

I’ve never quite understood
why we resist it. 

Children are drawn
to anything that sparkles -
anything that catches the light
and throws it
across the room.

Somewhere along the way
we grow up
and start worrying more
about the cleanup
than the wonder.

Yes
there is glitter in my bed.

Yes
sometimes it itches
when I roll over at night.

But one day
there will be 
no glitter.

No small hands
dumping half a bottle
onto the table.

No sparkling trail
across the kitchen floor.

No mysterious pile
of fairy dust
left on the windowsill
for reasons only my daughter understands.

One day
I will vacuum the house
and it will stay clean - 
just dog hair
and ordinary dust.
Nothing that sparkles
back at me.

The lint trap
will hold only lint.

And I will realize
the glitter is gone.

So today
I welcome it - 

on the bottoms of my feet,
in the folds of the blankets,
in my own damn bed,
in the dryer
and the corners of the house.

Because right now
the sparkle means
she still believes in magic.

And lucky for me,
she still lives here

scattering it
everywhere.