Living With Teenagers Poem by Ana Monnar

In the middle of a long distance conversation
with my bedroom door closed and locked,
The sound of an alarmed voice from the other
side was asking me to open up
Thought it was a tragedy, when in fact the
commotion was about a pair of shorts I had
been searching for
“Have patience”, I answered,
“Just hang them on the knob.”
A few minutes later to the shower
I went to bathe,
All of a sudden loud thumps and vibration
came from the wooden floor
Like a stampede of elephants mad dashing
through the other side of the wall
Getting ready for the beach
Gathering the towels, food, cooler
Every effort to go out the door
All but one of the three children
Building a future city on and on…
City planning, plumbing, electricity, taxes,
rivers, bridges
Seems so exciting to him
Loves statistics and dreams about mathematics
Yet an N.B.A. player or a P.E. coach he
dreams to be
Dreams and ideas are wonderful to reach for
and to achieve