March 1st (or early April Fools)

Lost in my menagerie are

any set of rules, like:

2 + 2, Winston Smith, is 4, or

spay your housepets when you can

or… well, take what comes and

give what goes and may

the spirits guide the rest.

Our lady guinea pigs,

Tanya and Rosinka, realized

what we didn’t, that they

could make a little family.

The company they kept sufficed,

we thought: they chortled day

and in the cloak of night.

They ate lustily and Rozinka

grew fat; she sat in my lap

while Joe and I played chess,

and Tanya squirmed and squeaked

in Joe’s. We’d trade and finish up

the game, then put the girlfriends back.

Mom brought the pair to school

to teach her pupils what they were;

Rozinka’s eyes bulged big and scared

and Tanya danced to kids’ delight.

Emma said, some mornings after,

“Dad, I think I see some babes!”

Absurd, of course, and we are late—

I like the practice prank alright

and hustle us to start our day.

Thank God the hyperactive Tanya

didn’t chomp those cherubim apart:

We came home to the truth of Em’s

observance: 2 + 2 is 4, even if

with moms it should have been an i,

or any such imaginary sum.

We have, despite the rules,

a family—a found menagerie

and (lest we forgot in all this

shuffle) a generation Pushkin passed:

so 2 + 2 can conjure 5.  Indeed.