Tourist Toddler in Grey From the Perspective Of Young Single Woman On Vacation In LA Who Doesn’t want to have a baby: She Won’t Have A Baby

LACMA, Los Angeles

The sidewalk is interrupted by a metal drain strip

– approximately seventy mm holes wide

 

A mom slows to a stop looking at her phone

While her toddler –

in all grey 

with overdeveloped semimembranosus muscles

that jut in,

Like her narrow hips jut out –

Dips to touch the perforated metal stripping.

 

From here

I think she’s touched the metal from fingertip

To wrist

 

Palms flat and sliding across the metal

As this utility is meaningfully experiential,

 

Like the Rembrant or Picasso 

was to her mother inside the building.

 

Mom slips her phone back in her pocket.

 

Toddler shoots her elbows back, racing

To the parking garage.