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.”
