In the society of anxious mothers

Brandy McKenzie

 

How easy it is to slip into old habits.

How easy it is to slip into old lies.

She tells me about her son, his prostitution.

I write nothing down.  I have nothing

to give her that’s full or empty, just

reassurance.  I hint and I hem and I haw.

I don’t even know how to haw.

Her boy, her beautiful boy, & she’d given him

all a boy could there’s love, and then

there’s this line.  I can’t help but think

of mine and mine. And me: I’m so

introverted that way.  Turned inside out

so all my pieces shine. No, glisten.

She’s as raw as I, but won’t say so.

I won’t speak a line.  These children, tied

as they are to our bodies, pricking apart

innards like scribes. No, scriveners. No:

prognosticate, procrastinate, read the guts and tea

to see the what’s mine?  I don’t know.

I have no words for her.  Not mine, 

not hers, not wry homunculi we birthed

and named into this world.  I’ve lied,

again and again.  She’s cried, but lies about it.