Locomotion

Mama

 

Some days, like today

and yesterday and probably

tomorrow- all my missing gets jumbled up inside of me.

 

You know honeysuckle tale powder?

Mama used to smell like that she told me

honeysuckle’s really a flower but all I know

is the powder that smells like Mama.

 

Sometimes when the missing gets real bad

I go to the drugstore and before the guard starts

following me around like I’m gonna steal something

I go to the cosmetic lady and ask her if she has it.

when she says yeah, I say

Can I smell it to see if it’s the right one?

Even though the cosmetics ladies roll their eyes at me

they let me smell it.

And for those few seconds, Mama’s alive

again.

And I’m remembering

all kinds of good things about her life

the way she laughed at my jokes

even when they were dumb

and the way she sometimes just grabbed me

and hugged me before

I had a chance to get away.

And the way her voice always sounded good

and bad at the same time when she was singing

in the shower.

And her red pocketbook that always had some

tangerine Life Savers inside it for me and Lili

 

No, I say to the cosmetics lady. It’s not the right one,

And then I leave fast.

Before somebody asks to check my pockets

Which are always empty ‘cause I don’t steal.