South Pasadena Poem

South Pasadena

It’s always the same.

Well, more or less.

I always –

Almost always –

Envy the healthy older men –

Clear retirees –

So secure,

And the smooth-haired younger

Women exiting their

Well-washed

Volvos etc

Whenever I make my brief sojourn from

The parking lot to the ATM

In the nearby rich neighborhood

That Mom and I always –

Almost always –

Admired through the bus window when I

Was a kid.

I will almost always

Think of her

When I hear Prince on the radio

Because she texted me last year

“Did you know Prince died?  Only 57, how sad.”

And then she died the next month.

On the radio I’ll hear the song about his wary

Admiration of a loose woman or the one where

He just wants to party his sadness away

And I’ll think of how surprising and sweet it was that

Mom cared about his death – 

she of the Beatles

And Vivaldi.

She, a white woman raised in the midcentury midwest.

I’ll always eat candy when it’s around 

(during children’s holidays, usually)

And then glimpse my

Chipped yellow teeth in the mirror and

Decide that I’m sort of disgusting

But also sort of appealing

In a furtive burrowing animal sort of way.

But still,

I’ll practically always envy those strangers

With nice white teeth,

Other people who look less lonely and

Richer than me,

By far,

Women with unscathed and milkily lovely

Chests and capable-looking men

Who walk around with

Their easy hands stuffed easily

In the pockets of their shorts

So smug, like “Who, me? 

I’m just enjoying the day.”