Toys with me, my seven-year-old son.
Must pee when I’m five reveries in
on my weekend shower.
Even if locked, marshals the magic
key—speared paper clip—
unlocks his glee.
I can’t admit
the red nose of the Operation patient,
the punchline of a jack-in-the-box,
the errant ringtone—
all steal me, so that when he pulls
that curtain on a lark,
I vaporize—
become Marion Crane,
and he, my Norman.
Michael Alcée’s work has appeared in San Antonio Review, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, and Tarry and is forthcoming in Quarter Press and The Branches. In addition to being a poet, he is a psychologist and author of Therapeutic Improvisation (Norton, 2022) and The Upside of OCD (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024).