Once Upon a Time the Poet was Wondering the Rooms of the National Gallery

And now the poet is nursing two sick children.

And now the poet is preparing for the class in which she will be observed as she commandeers her 1,000th peer review.

And now the poet's eyes are smarting as she looks over a page in her notebook, an ekphrastic poem she began at the National Gallery two weeks ago, but which she has not yet had time to transcribe to the computer screen.

One child is living on Campbell's Chicken with Stars. The other made foam-flower poster-board creations all day. They both ate too much Valentine candy.

But last week that poet was . . . a poet! Got her nose right up to Pollock's "Lavender Mist," unnerving the guards.

No way! The poet is still a poet. The poet lives on amidst the Dove heart wrappers and the piles of unwashed bowls. The poet, breaking up the fight about who gets to be on the coziest side of the bed. The poet and her satchel of ungraded research proposals, Levis' Selected in one hand, thermometer in the other.