You argue with your mother

 

You argue with your mother

about curfew, about freedom,
about blow jobs (yikes!) and
It’s not like when you were a hippie, Mom.
You punch something angry into your phone.

I take you for a driving lesson.
You’re still steaming, not concentrating
so we stop at Pescadero Beach.
Pacific waves flatten as they foam,
cool our toes. Look — a seal!
A fat furry sausage in sunshine,
lying sidewise behind boulders.

It must be injured, you say.
A tension of body, quiver of muscle.
In the eyes, a focus of internal force,
same as I saw in the eyes of your mother
the day you were born.
She’s in labor, I say.

The lady sighs. Her sides bulge, rise,
then nostrils blow little storms of sand.

Not like people, you say. She
doesn’t scream in childbirth.
Neither did your mother, I say. Real life
childbirth is not like the movies.
You chew a lock of hair, nod, smile.
Neither is real life sex, you say, for all I know.
Which shuts my mouth solid.

From outside the circle of rocks you record
with phone as a seal pup emerges, squirms
randomly until mama spanks with fin,
guides her pup flopping to a teat.

In half an hour you’ve grown taller.
Happy birthday little seal, you whisper.
Then to me, sternly: Okay. I’ll drive us home.
And again, as if I missed it: Okay!

.…..

First published in Oyster River Pages
photo by David Mark