A Simmer Of Dreams

Saw her last evening in the front seat of a car,
A young face riddled with a grimace and a scar
A kerchief clenched in her fist, she struggled to speak
As a teardrop contoured along her pale cheek.

Seated at the rear, decked in Prada new,
The mistress screamed foul like an incorrigible shrew
“What an incompetent mutt you make as a nanny,
Gosh, use your brains! Or oh, do you have any?
You were asked to keep an eye on little Grace,
And not to run amok all over the place!
What were you to get anyway in that expensive mall
That you left my child behind for your meaningless trawl?
You do get ‘em all, good food and my old suits,
Why, then, must you act too big for your boots?
The laxity aside, you must have some nerve
To ignore the paradox between what you get and deserve.”

The nanny said nothing, but much did her eyes
Of the simmer of dreams that beyond them lies,
A simmer that sees no equations of affluence
It rises in every heart, like an unsaid ordinance.

“To your mind they seem like trifles,” she seemed to say,
“But such modest nothings are enough to make my day.
Your wallet rings louder, but I wish you would know
That human pride sees no class, high or low.”