Child

"I'll eat you"

she said,
she lifted the pajama shirt from
the small, pale, and distended torso

her eyes alight, silver with mischief
and truth that the child never caught.

she pressed her chapped lips to the belly,
above the navel, only seperated from the mother
a handful of years before,
and she blows

the sound resembles boat rudders, and the child
is supposed to laugh,
or smile,
or fight her away
but he does not.

she pulls back and looks down towards him
and she is frustrated, angry, and anxious
about being kind for once.

it never crossed her mind that the boy did not
respond because he was dead.

her insitant, and long-since deceased
mother's voice clouded her head
and rang forever in her ear -

"Stop playing with your food."