Birthdays

Do you carry your past like a stone in your pocket?

Not surprisingly birthdays come on like villains knocking at our doors, tap, tap, tap, shifty-eyed fast speaking salesmen peddling love, wisdom, youth and popularity pushing substitutes in bottles, tiny millimeters of hope Shifter stones, natal lovers, dark aliens, eaves-dropping our days, troubling our nights.

Feigning possibilities of youth and good health, intertwining hope with dread, Fantasy with fact,

Re-defining gravity as incidental, promising regularity as attainable, shifty fast speaking salesmen console us with companion pillows, heating pads, Flex all and Unisom,

Un-pearling our hopes and dreams a little while longer, Old age is no party, No matter, No, No, Sometimes we swallow their lines greedily with regular doses of Metamucil, Centrum Silver and Maalox.

So what if Lady Clairol is our friend? When we can’t sleep, not without all those young hot lovers who mused our days and pleasured our nights, Come you now with wrinkled skin and beer barrel waists with high, high foreheads, No matter, No, No, meet us at the Vender’s Market in the Land of dreamy plenty.

***

Turning Into Mom

I hear my mom’s voice many
Mornings when I roll out of bed, her
Eyes looking back at me in the mirror,
Both of us crying a little,
It was our habit to refer back to
Minutes, weeks, months, or years gone
By, when forced to keep doing, as
Opposed to enjoying each other,
When we sat eye-to-eye, we were
Estranged, waiting for our bodies to
Stop hurting, and our minds to stop
Accusing and excusing,
But now that she is deceased, I try to
Simplify my twisted feelings by trying
To forgive and forget, and remember
Our anger at the world did not
Compromise our love.