Devon Balwit

SHADOW SONNET

The children are anxious, but no more so
than their parents, who are also anxious, so

much so that they day-drink on top of their meds,
Xanax or Zoloft, worrying about their kids’ drinking

on top of their meds, in addition to the vaping, the eating
or not eating, which requires more therapy, eating

into their savings, which increases the not-sleeping, the worry
about their dwindling retirement, the kids, also not sleeping,

whom the parents can sense, deer-eyed before their screens,
chewing their nails before the horrors, the drama, the wars

unspooling, the children unspooling, the parents
unspooling, a bloodless though none the less disturbing

intergenerational trauma, this passing of the baton,
in the pell-mell hurtle towards what shatters in passing.

DEVON BALWIT walks in all weather and is a lover of botanical gardens and natural history museums. When not writing, she draws and cartoons, and edits for Asimov Press. For more of her work, visit: https://pelapdx.wixsite.com/devonbalwitpoet