But my folks mean well. They pay.
A rattlesnake snores beneath our table.
My feminist mother kicks it away.
Not the place for a poison penis!
And besides, "He can't appreciate
This food: snakes have no taste."
The snake wakes, insulted,
Coils to a churning pool of scales,
And snarls "Back off!" and I do, I do.
"All it wants is space," I say,
"And how do you know it's not a she?"
I don't point out that rattler-tongues
Are forked gourmets who merely disagree
That screaming squirming mouse can't please
Like rotten Brie.
The coil and I back off a bit, and calm,
But Mom enjoys a domestic storm.
"You must face your fear!" she says.
"You must face your anger!" she says.
"You must kill this public danger!" she says.
"I'll help," she hollers, and herds
That rattler at me!
It flees her clomping cattle-feet,
Curls round my frozen right leg,
Buzzes and glares, a psychotic bangle
Strangling my sanctuary ankle.
The fury spirals up my shin, as I cold-sweat.
Rage-helix rising, inside my jeans.
She says "As it comes out your collar,
I'll crush its head."
At last I see my mother
Wants me dead.
Angry thrashing at my knee.
Tight jeans stuck the snake!
"Your genes are to blame!" my mother scolds.
But I'm as deaf to her now as the snake,
Staring as my lumpy leg writhes,
My calf gone steroid, rippling
like a muscleman gone mad--
I wait for the fatal little stab.
And so I wake.
I wake in a cold reptilian fear--and here I swear
Never to face a goddamn thing.
Let sleeping rattlers be.
So Mom hates my Y-gene, the male forked tongue?
Then I feel the twinge in my knee.
Peel up the covers to see...
Two red punctures in the bony joint's side.
A vampire's been in bed with me!
Though I kept her from my neck
where she planned the fatal bite...
Mom got under my skin last night.
So when "Face your blah blah" invades YOUR head,
Remember--MY mom
Wanted me
Dead.