Shelby’s Mom

When we used to smoke cigarettes
with Shelby’s mom out back 
where ferns overthrew the steps
her tattoos like pay-per-view 
on her rolled up sleeves new and old
and us uncomfortable wearing overstuffed bras
and the tampons she had recently 
bought and told us to figure it out 
because no one wants
to see a pad not even her
 
Sometimes she’d buy us Swisher Sweets 
and she’d still be wearing her scrubs 
Sublime playing in the background and
she no longer pointed and joked that we should
sit in the blue plastic bench made
for people of innocence: we had 
our periods and we were right up there 
with her sucking along something grape
or strawberry

I had never seen a mother
like that, so young and beautiful and sometimes
at night when the light went soft, I could hardly tell
the difference between them