@

Always Messing with them Boys
Jessica Helen Lopez                
BACK


My Mama Is a Poet

oh silly mama
why are you always scratching
words out of your head,
like nighttime pulgas, like old-school
rollers wrapped around the pelos of your bangs,
pink little pieces of crazy?

do you love poetry
more than me
or because of me?

oh silly mama
why you always muttering to yourself
switching your hips to and fro,
foaming up the dishes,
your narrow behind keeping time
bones clanking, elbows flapping
bumping to some unheard music
banging around
in that bellfry of a brain?

mama, will I be like you?
Like you, I say
will I be like you,
manless, big-footed and
loudmouthed?

Will men and mean-hearted women
stuff a dishtowel between my lips,
lock me in the basement, force me
to wash and fold their clothes?

Will I have to find the time to
rhyme between the chores?

Pretend I donft love my
poetry as much as I do,
fool myself into thinking I just
ainft that good?

oh silly silly mama,
will I ever forget to write?
will I ever learn to love
myself?

Why you always crying
sad sad mama?
hiding your tears
beneath the rainforest of a shower

If you want to forget
why you always
writing to remember?

BACK

@

@