It must be awful to be a mother
I write during my summer as a nanny.
When my days are all sunscreen and small disasters,
blowing sand out of the binding of library books.

There’s a man I hate missing and hate
remembering he never made me feel safe
as a cab rising to meet my arm.

The children are rich but don’t yet know it.
I want to tell him about the photos
Annie Leibovitz took of them,
how beautiful they are.

On the property in Bridgehampton
they hide, I seek, and we find deer beds,
grass matted down to a sheet.
I check my charges’ ankles for ticks.

Deer in the cornfield are unafraid.
They eat raw white kernels
unstartled by the children
shrieking on the trampoline.

See how the sun setting
over landlocked fields
feels terrible.