My Mothers Keeper

i smoke a cigarette with my hair down.

ponytails look young and

i am attempting to suggest maturity

as my mother is thrown from a bar

by a man in a uniform

he bought

at a strip mall.

i am smoking a cigarette with my hair down

when she falls to the bedside

crying whiskey tears

and lapping up blood

from a nightstand head wound.

i am smoking a cigarette with my hair down

as a cop asks me if im old enough for that

and hands over my mothers ticket of indecency

for making love to Jim Beam

in public.

i am smoking a cigarette with my hair down

as she wakes to tiding sink waters and asprin,

tightening a robe around her sickness and

asking if i got a light,

because she knows i always do.

i am smoking a cigarette with my hair down

while she forgets the nights spent

sobbing in her daughters lap

gripping her bruised chin,

spitting and slurring:

"your daddy was right about you girl, you know that?"

now i am smoking a cigarette

with my hair up

in the bathroom of a Motel 6,

a blonde mass of tangle

held together by a rubber band i found

in her purse.

and as she beats on the door

with whiskey fists

i lock tired eyes with the mirror

and cut it off.