Motherspeak

My mother complains               
        	and that’s how I know
she loves me. She says       
        	my shorts are too short
and they show off my legs all        
        	varicose veiny. She
says I need shorts like my son,         
        	but he says I don’t
need them because
        	I’m pretty. Mom says
pretty is as pretty does.
        	What she means is: I can’t
bear to be without you.
 
        	When Mom freaks out about
the traffic accidents on the eight
        	and tells me to work closer
or I’ll regret it, she’s telling
        	me she worries about me
on the road, and I keep thinking
        	she wasn’t given tools.
Her mother in and out of mental
        	institutions, her stepdad stuck
his tongue down her throat
        	as she did the dishes. Her own
mother could not believe it.
        	She wasn’t given tools, and yet
she believed me when I told
        	her how weird it was that
Mr. Armin’s hands snuck
        	up my friend’s (his daughter’s)
ass, and never let me spend
        	the night again. When Barbara
Streisand and Neil Diamond
        	would play on the radio, oh,
how Mom would sing in her lovely
        	soprano. You don’t sing me love
songs, drowning out any of us kids.
        	Her mother used to tell her to stop
that squawking when Mom was in her school
        	choir and practiced every day
to create a way out of chaos. She got out,
        	made her own.