KT
Bonny Bad Mother
Back when Bad Mother cut her sabered incisors
on the same gnawed raw hide that satisfied Us
chihuahua, she was a good deal milder. Her eyes were
yet jaundiced and blither, her bristly chinwhiskers had
yet tasseled twiner, her bonneted burden had just
learned to spew violence—she
was a nursling, nubile,
and neither.
My Younger Self didn’t mind helping diaper her,
pinning her lobe to lobe in sterile foil, in ore gossamer.
After washing her, Bad Mother’s scrubbed honey curls
squeaked, tempted Us nostrils. Snuffs of her Us
sneaked while she napped, huffing wet fronds,
harmless as doves at the nape of her neck. Knew Us
not much was left in the way of Bad Mother’s blonde
years. My Younger Self cerebralled her cortex off Bad
Mother’s piquant after-bath odor. She fell febrile,
thought it over, baptized Bad Mother in bleach.
What caustic wail!
What airsick scream she heaved!
By the time I reached her, the color had leached
from Bad Mother’s iris and Bad Mother’s cheeks.
From that day onward, each morning when Bad
Mother waked, My Younger Self made up Bad
Mother’s face, lacquering the acid-streaks with
an expired vial of rouge, dusting her eyelids in poison-
dart-frog-blue, daubing her double-dangling lips with
bloodblister maroon.