Irvington children are usually Peters and Debbies

Who eat Cap’n Crunch in vinyl dining areas.

Go to Radio City Music Hall in car pools,

And brush after every meal.

That is not the kind of child I have in mind.

Someday I’ll have a Greenwich Village baby,

The kind who likes Vivaldi when he’s three.

Has too much hair, no shoes, a high IQ.

And his own analyst.

I’ll feed my baby Camembert and paté.

He’ll only watch the finest N.E.T.,

While his father—the poet—sits in a sling chair

Writing a sonnet.

I will not raise my son to be a doctor.

He will not have to love his dad or me.

I’ll be content with any girl he chooses.

As long as she pickets.

Someday I’ll have a Greenwich Village baby,

At seventeen he’ll have his Ph.D.

At twenty-five his Andrea and Lube

Will play in the sandbox at Washington Square

While their grandmother—the medieval scholar—

Sits on a bench

Reading Aquinas in Latin.