Small boy sitting at the kitchen table;
oak scrubbed bare to reveal a tracery of scars
marking the wars that have been fought here.

He lets fall a shower of crumbs
to mark a minor skirmish over sprouts,
long gone now. Dinner over,
he tries his age-old trick,

'Ice-cream?' ask wide brown puppy-dog eyes.
'You've got no chance' comes the reply from Mum,
accepted as gracefully as only a teen can be
with punky attitude, a sigh and facial mime.

She sighs in harmony, 'You're assive you are.'
'No, you are. Stupid.'
A minor territorial infringement, barely worth
marking on the worn wood.

Better to let it lie and move on,
'A jigsaw before bedtime?'
'No thanks.' (Playstation would suit much better).

She doesn't approve but it helps to fill
a world circumscribed by an extra chromosome.
A double helix condensing on itself,
coiling in to form a noose.

She lets him slip
into the familiar ritual. Off to fell
a few more lego jedi before it's time for a bath,
a story and into bed for dream-packed sleep
until morning when they begin again.