Poem: "Muddled Up"

This is the second freebie for today's fishbowl session, courtesy of new prompter jb_slasher from Dreamwidth.  It was inspired by a prompt from rix_scaedu.  This also fills the "Dirty/Messy" square on my card for Cottoncandy_bingo.  The poem belongs to the Monster House series, and you can read more about that on the Serial Poetry page.

My son stood at the base of the porch
with his friend Melinda beside him,
both of them covered head to toe in mud
that trickled down their small bodies
to pool beneath their sneakers.

The explanation of this was less than clear,
as he picked at drying flakes on his forearm
and she finger-combed her black hair to rattails,
something about a puddle portal and a dare
and a very friendly earth dragon.

"You," I said to them,
"will go stand by the faucet so I can hose you off.
You are not coming into the house like that."

A muffled chuckle beside me
made me turn to glare at the bogeyman.
"You," I said to him,
"were supposed to be watching  them,
by which I meant you were supposed to stop  them
from getting into trouble."

"You're a parent," the bogeyman said.  "You should know
anything that can be fixed with soap and water
does not qualify as trouble."

At the far end of the yard,
the mud puddle rippled,
clay-colored coils rising and then
subsiding again.

"You," I said to the bogeyman,
and then shook my head.
"Nevermind.  Just ... go get the soap."