There's Nothing Like The Smell of Failure in The Morning

I didn’t smile

Ask if he was OK

Tell him everything would be fine and

Reassure him that it was no big deal

 At least not right away

Faced with

Shit

Seeping out of his shorts

Onto his sheets

His hands and

The floor

Shit he had woken up with and tried to pull off of his irritated rear

Shit I had unknowingly rubbed into the carpet

In the pitch black of this early May morning

When I laid him down to change his diaper

Faced with shit

I asked him why

I moaned

I gritted my teeth

I sighed

I sighed a lot

I implored him never to do this to me again and

I didn’t smile