So there they are – and she takes a look around. Nobody. After all this time (well, how much time has passed, she doesn’t know but it doesn’t change the fact that nobody’s around). She puts the kid in a headlock (she’s not sure why she does it – except that maybe it’s easier to hold the knife and him at the same time) and she drags him up the front steps of her building and then all the way


up the stairs to her flat (and then, inside her flat).


Screw it, she thinks, I’ll call in sick.


She locks the kid in an empty closet.


He howls. (Oh, how he howls.)


Tough titty.


Because she’s already decided. She’s going to civilize him.


He is going to write better poems than her. Than she? She’s never sure about that one – but he sure will be.


He will have all the chances that she never had.


But then: she is his mother, isn’t she?


And: he, he’s her son.


MARK FARRELL 25


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