The girl & I ate spaghetti
and carrot sticks
and we colored with crayons
mazes & Pokémon & cats
and rainbows & shooting stars
and then I gave her a bath,
which is the easiest way to
look at my phone
while I’m on duty.
She played for twenty minutes
with those little toys
I listened as I scrolled
to make sure she was still talking
not drowned
and then I let her watch a clip on my phone
while I brushed her hair
with a towel around her shoulders.
She is cuter than most
I would even say I love her
but still
the hours drag.
Finally the father came home
he said thank you so much
I said we had fun
he didn’t pay me.
Sometimes parents pay me later,
over Venmo,
so I went to get my shoes
and he asked,
Where are you going?
And I said I’m going home
he said you live here
this is your home.
Anna Hogeland is the author of the novels The Long Answer and Wild Aster. She has an MFA from UC Irvine. Her writing has appeared in Literary Hub, Big Issue, iNews, The Gloss Magazine, Romper, The Southern Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She lives in Western Massachusetts.
