-the importance of raspberry jam and our early understanding of water-

I’m looking at my two and a half year old son

snacking after his feeding of nutritious food

prepared by the hands of his mother.
I've provided the snacks and now

his hands and face and hair are sticky with raspberry

jam and what appears to be cake frosting, although

no trace of cake can be found anywhere in the house.

his mother is in another room and seems content
to have left him in my care.

I don’t mind and my immediate concern is to find a way

to wrestle him from his passion for sugar and to clean him up
before I'm nabbed in the act by his mother,

but I’m too intrigued by his singular dismissiveness on being such a sticky mess.

It would drive me crazy.

everything he touches from his tray sticks to his hands.
his hands stick together, finger to finger.

his hair (Monica Vitti blonde) is matted in tufts of deep-red raspberry jam.

when is it, I thought, being a sticky mess like this becomes a nightmare?

I wouldn’t last a minute.

when does that instant of enlightenment come to us

when we look down at ourselves and the mess we’ve made of ourselves

and reason: “I need a warm running water”.

Ohio