They’re eating sausages at the kitchen table,
charcoal brown and smoked, traces of black
flake onto the ash covered plate.
The mother forks one link,
and misses,
the sausage bounces like a misshaped rubber ball
and rolls next to another.
Her son’s deep grey eyes strike the sooty floor tiles
like a single match consumed by flames
as an ailing mouse drags itself across the floor
craving arsenic and formaldehyde.
Inhalation
and the mother forks the second link,
squeezing it between her thumb and index finger,
the grease staining her fingertips.
Reaching into her left pocket, her eyes sink to the floor.
I found these in your bedroom,
as she widens her lips,
welcoming the sausage’s smokey flavor
into her lungs.