Thirty Two Years
I'm built like a burlap sack full of mongrel pups.
Too bad the arroyo is dry
I live in a stucco mudpile  where the kitchen linoleum peels up like iguana skin.
I wanted wicker and stained glass.
Too fragile for the lions that roar on my savannah.
I can drink and curse most men unconcious.
I'm nothing like that drunken S.O.B. you married
Whose every nasty habit crawls out of my skin unbidden.
So unlike your high school sweetie.
How amazing that genes can lie.

I sing seventies soul in the shower.
Cry poetry in twilight
This tenor voiced soprano warms with age.
When I'm forty I'll sing like Tina Turner.
WishI was black so I'd have legs like that.
I wanted a spotlight.

Drowning in a testosterone saturated puddle
Of synchronized farting, moco noses
And hot wheels sprouting from the carpet
I nurture till it hurts
Yes, you can raise tadpoles in the baby pool
Say "please and thank you".
Blow that nose in your tissue not your sleeve.
I love you, I'm so proud you can count to infinity.
Your eyes are bluer
You'll be taller
You're smarter than I was at your age.

Mama, you never let me be better than you
Ten fingers and toes, all you said you wanted - wasn't enough to make you whole.
I am a bogle in your basement
What color is the bad sheep when she's the only one?
A faded white reminder of your own failures
Captured in those curling Kodak moments
Your lithe arms draped over me
Your eyes focused on the Guy du Jour
Never felt my own small heart beating
Above the thunder of your own.
My mouth full of lava soap and spaghettios
Never able to question your omnipotence.

You still shriek in my dreams, Mama.
A jade eyed banshee screaming for a soul I cannot give you.
I never close my eyes.

I kiss my boys damp curls while they sleep
One tousled froth of lemon merangue
One butterscotch sweet against my lips.
Perfect love.
I wonder if you ever felt that ache in your heart  for me?
As you yanked that wire brush through my bristley mane
Or smacked my young *** with it?
Give me one more chance to nuzzle against you
And look up into eyes as bright as new leaves.
Let me see myself as a perfect reflection of you.
In my heart, we are whole...

TL Boehm
3/18/98