call me Kitten and I’ll
come and lick your anything
with my small pink tongue
call me in then put
me out I like to
skulk unto my room alone
at night this feline likes
to mourn you bitterly after
you flunk out there are
things I like to lose

more like a sculpture than
a woman – monumental in old
lady dress and beads, she
awed me with her size,
the immensity of her shelf-like
bosom, hair the color and
texture of spunsteel – more like
Godzilla than a 4th-grade teacher,
she hypnotized her students with
her wrinkly jiggling neck skin

well, it wouldn’t be right
to trespass with these comments
on your life’s sanctity – the
second son called to priesthood
from within one Irish Catholic
family, to serve the Lord
in South America or somewhere –
would be sinful to compare
your purpose, gracefully received, to
my rag-tag corporate-sponsored wandering scramble

hysteria meet self-doubt – neuroses incompatible,
yet we traveled young together –
the Housatonic, Cambridge, Vinalhaven, Camden,
Ann Arbor, Rocky Mountains, Wind
River, Ten Sleep Canyon in
my green VW – when we
parted in LA, I was
upset with you, now recognize
your willingness was the vehicle
we drove along that road

her arrival coincided with my
leaving – I helped take care
of her, but more as duty
than relationship – another baby
from the system, a damaged
family, my mother didn’t like
the visits from her parents,
but I guess the supervision
helped, she went back to them –
sweet chariot swinging low

they came to us together,
foster children for the weekend –
he, brave and speaking only
Spanish, liked to play with
motorcycles, she adorable and tiny,
didn’t speak at all yet –
quiet little kids with dignity
they coped with this array
of tall pale unfamiliar strangers –
I couldn’t separate them now