Parental Authority Is A Myth Like Any Other Myth

Poem
Written By Rachel Trousdale

Speaking of which, where are our robot sharks?
Two, four, six, eight, whom do we repudiate?
Animals! Why do you keep doing bad things?
You’ve been growling furiously all afternoon,

“Two, four, six, eight, whom do we repudiate?”
Asking the question doesn’t change the answer
you’ve been growling furiously all afternoon.
Where and just how fast are you going?

Asking the question doesn’t change the answer
unless you’re addressing a photon.
Where and just how fast are you going
to build your new city? Utopia,

unless you’re addressing a photon.
Animals! Why do you keep doing bad things
to build your new city, Utopia?
Speaking of which, where are our robot sharks?

Rachel Trousdale

Rachel Trousdale is an associate professor of English at Framingham State University. Her poems have appeared in The Nation, the Yale Review, Diagram, and a chapbook, Antiphonal Fugue for Marx Brothers, Elephant, and Slide Trombone. She’s also the author of several scholarly books, most recently Humor, Empathy, and Community in Twentieth-Century American Poetry.

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