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.