The Debuts

by Michael Mirolla

I’m never sure if it’s just coincidence but things start to happen the moment you show up at the house with your debut poetry collection in one arm and latest baby in the other. As usual, although you hand the baby over the moment you see me, you claim to be serious about both—and that includes the SpaceX ads interspersed in your collection used, as you point out, “to enhance the out-of-this-world potential of the poems and their universal significance reaching far far beyond this little blue dot.” But that doesn’t stop the front door from flying off its hinges and then bouncing fearfully away down the street like a character from a Disney cartoon. Or the toilet flooding upwards towards the second floor as you pass by on your way to the kitchen. Or a baby quickly morphing into a child quickly morphing into a young adult so that, within moments, I end up holding a teenager in my arms. Or the dog surfacing from under the earth in the back garden while you stare out the bay window using your posed thoughtful gaze. Or mom and dad holding hands and following close behind before the earth heals itself. And thus, we’re gathered around the melamine kitchen table in no particular order: mom, dad, you, me, your child (now a teen), and dog. Next, I’ll write a YA novel, you announce, out of the blue. Is that why your child has stopped morphing? Has not become a full-blown adult? If that’s the case, then you’d better get busy. I want to see that novel under your arm on your next regal entrance. Even if the wine casks risk bursting to corrode the cement footings.