I was just
winding her up
when I told her that sometimes
she was maternal with me.

Just a wind-up,
but I was ******* her breast,
I guess.

Anyway, she jolts up
and leaves me lying there
with my wet mouth open,
the bed splashed with
the tumbled contents of the ash tray,
and I could sense a ******
confrontation heating up.

I prepared the extinguisher.

"Don't ******* say that,
I can't ******* stand that"

She scathed my like a child,
and I realised I had awoken a dragon.

I sprayed the scene
with exaggerated attempts
to reduce it's meaning.
Palms up, face loose,
a goofy ******* laugh.
She was having none of it
and left me to think about
what I had said.

I should have been
sat on the stairs.

But she was a mother once.
Well, nearly.
Her instincts had been all
fired up only for an operation
to take away the need.
She felt that loss,
the mother that never was.

And now she had to put up with me.