I’ve noticed that on the east side of Central Park in New York, above the zoo but below the Met, there are two playgrounds, one of which is a mommy playground and the other of which is a nanny playground. To a Philadelphian, this seems pretty twisted, but I guess that’s what happens when you make up a whole city out of Midwesterners and new-minted Americans, without any real natives to speak of. It’s true there is at least one playground in Society Hill in Philly where the nannies and the moms both take kids but don’t seem to mingle very much. (However, a gay dad friend of mine who frequents it says actually there are three groups, the nannies, the pony-tails and the gay dads, and the gay dads, at least, are allowed to talk to anyone.) But all the playgrounds closest to me are much more egalitarian. The real class warfare is otherwise aligned. One of the playgrounds we take Maisie to regularly has a dog run behind a hurricane fence along one side. So we get to see lots of dogwalkers, and au pairs. They seem to hate each other.

I think dogwalkers see themselves as independent entrepreneurs and au pairs as badly-paid servants with only one night off per week. Au pairs, all of them European, know they’ll get to go along on the family vacation to Disney or the Outer Banks or the Jersey Shore. They’re taking a year off to see America on the cheap before going home to manage a hedge fund, and refuse to associate with the underclass of dogwalking dropouts. Of course both groups hate their charges. The funny thing is, the more dogwalkers hate dogs, the more they love kids, and the more au pairs hate kids, the more they love dogs, and the happier the dogs and kids are. It’s only dogs out with their owners who stand still in the street refusing to move. Only kids with Moms or Dads, or worse, both together, ever cry.

This is a parable about poets, poetry camps, revision and creative writing programs, but it’s too beautiful a day for me to tell you exactly how. I’m outta here.