I stood around for the time
it takes a cigarette to burn
at the playgrounds of Eshing

and watched a toddler
smash with a two-year-old’s violence
– and that malice which itself
in mirrors does not see –
together the heads of two ragdolls

by pushing to contact
and pulling to separation
and by rinsing and repeating
this process to the two

and mused that never a more apt
allegory for our marriage
has there been
and doubted if there ever will be.