Not Einstein Poem by Cathryn Hankla

The father and the mother were neither smiling nor alone.
And their children were not at home.
All five enjoyed pizza, not pasta or anti-pasta, neither steaming nor raw, and one of them not acknowledged, but nonetheless there: the only one not frowning. You might say his mind waxed with imagination, replacing well-traveled synapses with crackling old radio storms. It was clear: this one was not going to be a surgeon or an engineer or a famous author.

He was not headed for adventure, trawling or trading. He was not going places. Was he gliding like a flying fish? He was not. I would say he was not quite right, and yet, as he ate, the only one not frowning, the only one not disconnected to the things in the air, and the drumming music around him, I thought it was the parents who were not quite right.

The mother crossed her arms, not smiling, smoking. That was not her son. The father had eyes only for his other two children, nothing wrong with either of them, not addled or ugly or backward, not smiling. Their mouths did not hang open; they were not nearly full-grown as was the older one, or stuck at the table's foot. These parents were not loving all three, were loving only two, were most obviously not loving the one,

the only one not frowning.