Thursday, September 12, 2013
(The Superficies of Servitude)
Part Three: The Brat’s Inscriptions
Aggrieved by formula, he wailed all night.
Colic, doctors claimed, as he flailed at the lactic brawl.
Stray twilight dogs showed up, enthralled recruits
Whose only purpose was to demonstrate
Rejection rates. Go find another bowl
Emptied enough to match your solemn howl.
“He must’ve gotten out during all our ruckus,” his dad
Would say, and what were we but animals
Too raucous to be handled . . .
Futility, thy name is brat, and mine.
There’s nothing to romanticize. Best friends?
Since when do thugs pretend to make amends?
An ideal betrayed is knowledge mocked:
“Could you change your brother’s diaper, push
Him in a stroller round the block? The bullies
Will let you be as long you’re helping me,”
She says. Was all of it that bad? Not so. Not so,
Insists a quiet voice. Who wants to loathe
One’s youth as utter emptiness? Weren’t boxes
Cheap with chocolate layered to nibble,
The sugar twisting logic to a scribble?
A mother is a saint, but if her child commits
a single mortal sin, her child will suck the tits
of Satan for eternity. Our fathers strut
on decks, three months at sea, revolving six.
Each afternoon, Queen for a Day forages
for bathos. Crouched on a hallway chair,
A mother sobs to four boys and two girls:
“You kids will kill me yet.” Imagine saying that
To Mr. Bailey. Jack, not George.
What other prizes loll in storage?
I am no gracious punk, nor was primed to be.
My mother watches others whimper and entreat,
Holds out cold cream, and asks if I’ll rub her feet.
Doesn’t now redeem that prison-house?
If it exists for someone else, then no.
Let all that trumpery of super-sacrifice
Dissolve within these streaks of soldered woe.
About Bill Mohr