Mother Trucker

My son screeches at his video game
on the way to football practice,

Mother trucker!

What’s the big deal? he asks,
I’m not saying ‘fucker.’

He has a point. They’re just words,
I used to tell my mother
when she yelled,
I should wash your mouth with soap!

I’m mother trucking down
a real highway to Hell,
bumper to bumper,
horns blaring—

Dammit, he head-shotted me!
Desmond yells at his Fortnite Hell,

as bicycles whir by
my bird-shat window,

and afternoon traffic
and motherhood
head-shot me.

Should I turn left,
on Lenient Lane,
or make a sharp right,
on Rigid Road?

I got three kills!

I scowl in my rearview mirror,
as he tries to head off judgment,

Don’t worry…there’s no blood,

and I wonder if I missed a short-cut.

Just one more round…
I’ll go to tilted towers and die…

Should I veer left
or make a U-turn at Unplug Way?

Mother trucker!

When traffic stops,
and I slam on the brakes—

Mom, you made me die!

His words whiplash,
like a rear-ending bus,
I’m trucking him up—

in Fortnite, he reassures,
not real life.

Some other mother in a Porsche Cayenne,
breezes by and cuts me off.

Mother trucker! I yell

Mom, really? She looks nice.

She probably doesn’t allow her kids
to play video games, I say,

as if I could bypass the hazards,
or navigate away
from the same dead end,

or reach max level
in the Motherhood Game,

where it’s not
the trucking mother’s fault.