Construction Zone

Mrs. Selby's Squirrels

A squirrel is eating Mrs. Selby’s house.
She wants me to staple screens over the holes
and spray the wood with nicotine
—I mean, no shit, nicotine—
which she swears will kill small animals.
Me, I think it will create cravings.
Hot day, I’m in shorts, slick
with spray below the knee.

Mrs. Selby’s husband is a Berkeley professor
with an article just published in Scientific American
about a mathematical paradox. She says
he’s brilliant but can’t balance his own checkbook.
She promises the money is good.

Sunning by the pool on a towel reading Principles
of Nuclear Engineering lies the college kid,
their beautiful daughter:
    afro black ringlets,
    a round ass,
    a musical voice.
Oh useless lust.
The daughter has merry eyes,  
the personality of a complex equation,
the body of an unproven hypothesis.

Once, I was aces at math.
Before I became a handyman with wife and kid,
when I was in high school winning a scholarship,
my future was boundless, unproven.
Life is a perfect miscalculation.
Gotta go home and shower off this nicotine.
Cravings, bah!
Damn squirrels.