are picking their way across the top of the fence at the bottom of your mortgaged lawn, as nimble as raccoons

pausing to knock over your bins and pick up the trash in their paws (they think they’re people!)

are returning from revels as unbothered as the black cat who sits outside the corner shop (he is friendly but please don’t feed himself, says the tag on his collar, but the hot moms wear no such identifying tags)

sure there’s a crack in everything, your man was right there, that’s how they got out

they are reverting to type, muttering fuckem if they can’t take a joke through pointed little fangs which are largely decorative but who knows in this economy

and also come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough — this, like football hooligans

or banshees. don’t look directly at hot moms, especially when their eyes glitter in the reflected light of high beams.

do you know how to love a wild thing? do you know how to love anything? by the time you figure it out, they’re gone.