Minding My Friends' Daughter Poem by Ronald Baatz

MINDING MY FRIENDS' DAUGHTER

On the other side of town, minding my
friends' daughter while he is working
at the paper until midnight and she is
away in Philadelphia performing in a play
I know very little about. Around nine,
after watching a movie, their daughter
Siri starts to doze in the room where
the woodstove is located and two large
cow skulls which adorn the wall in back
of where the typewriter sits with a roll
of paper in it. On this roll there are
hundreds of haiku put there by anyone
who wants to add to the collection.
All night the animals have been restless
and I've been letting them in and out.
I have no idea what they want. I ask Siri
and in her sleepy seven-year-old voice
she suggests that I simply ignore them,
and so I do but the situation remains
the same. I ask her what the name of
the large black cat is, and she tells me
that the cat is called Crow. I in turn
comment that this is an excellent name
for this cat since it certainly looks more
like a crow than a parakeet. At this
she rolls around howling with laughter
making the dog bark and pace faster and
the cats meow their heads off, and
even the wood crackling in the stove
gives off little promising explosions.

Ronald Baatz
Woodstock/1985