Losing the Tether to Myself

These days
I mostly hug my mother
in parking lots
outside Mexican restaurants
we catch  up sharing stories sharing chalupas
the long talk about her grandchildren
nieces and nephews
we talk about family, mostly
we sound sincere, I guess
and repetitive no doubt

she gives me room to find myself
whatever it might be I'm chasing
chatter about lost goals
my invented hope
I update the terms of unbound existence
my quixotic ambition
sometimes we even cry together

everyone seems to be someone I've seen before
that kind of guy
this kind of woman
adults playing dress-up
I remember these faces from when I was a kid
looking up at the unfolding story of my parents' life
a baseball collection of cast members
trying to place them in proper sleeves
figure them all out
which fits best
I wonder which one of them I've become

none of us are new under the sun
we are all flotsam floating together
is anyone ever anchored?
my god! half my concentration is spent
trying to keep quiet
silence the loud death wailing inside of me
for something lost

we are all labels on a foreman's clipboard
supervisor of a factory floor in the ethos
kindly cerebral gentleman
sadness that can't be healed
quirky fixer upper
lost in Neverland
gypsy daughter
misguided and misguiding
petroleum brain
thirsty for sin
little sister
forever in a fight
good son
playing the bad boy's part
wanton wife
miserable in her love

no one in my mother's bloodline will become an astronaut
I'm beginning to see that now
I conducted an orchestra with a lead pencil
I hunted wild rabbits through the poison green of the deep south
I slept with an alligator in the mud
we rolled together like lovers on the banks of a drainage canal
but he was too strong.

TA