new mother, smiling with her tongue
like an exotic snake behind
white corridors white teeth
with the perfume of her perfect baby-
her flesh and his ‘the husband who works’
beaming back at her; magical moments
they share imagining images becoming real
like the movies, well the movie is over as he tucks them both away and puts
work before his family for the next few decades, then
‘honey, I’m home!’ where a silent crib greets him because I’m seventeen.

hand on her crib so she can
balance her paycheck love and affection
under the weight of a ravenous whip
from her husband’s kisses
glossing at her breasts whilst she’s
cradling her infant in a smiling swing
a third breast in his mind’s carnal vision

his veins, decorations for his
impulsive desire to punctuate
pain and pleasure onto his sins
with his penis the nomad that
never settles he strides to and fro
marketing his seed wherever he goes
a factory of babies he’ll never know
replacing her childhood dildos with something
meaningful? pleasurable? what the fuck all night until she blows his brains out
with her moans were they thinking
when they made me?

she raises her hand like the Statue of Liberty
the same feeling he married her with
to think they found the kingdom of God within
a bonding till death do us part when human
treaties are broken by carnal nature
and the fact that misery loves company
etches around the family photos despite
the triumphant white teeth still in place
from the day he married work and her boobs
sagged in dissapointment the exotic snake now writing
speeches for her retirement the memoirs of my mother
still crying ‘please help me Mother Mary’ while daddy is bar hopping.