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Where some ideas are stranger than others...

AMAZONS at the Moonspeaker

The Moonspeaker:
Where Some Ideas Are Stranger Than Others...

Constancy

"You're always the same,"
she said.
"You don't change."
She sounded relieved.
I didn't understand her then.
Probably I don't understand her now.

"You're always the same,"
How could it be true?
She was making a comparison
between myself now
and myself in highschool.

By then it had already been:
eleven years,
two degrees,
five jobs,
seven homes,
two evictions,
two books published,
two trips cross country,
and a life time later.

Then again,
nobody said she had to be talking about me.
She doesn't have to concern herself about me,
unless she wants to.
That has been true since highschool.
But when she does concern herself,
I take every evasive manoeuvre available.
Once, I would have welcomed her concern.
But these days I don't welcome it anymore.
It's always a prelude to passing on
whatever problem she has.

Her range of problems has been quite creative.
Drunken coworker.
Insane family gathering.
Digitizing two hundred and fifty cassettes.
Box of stuff she can't bear to throw out
or stand to keep.
Insane family gathering.
Sibling being thrown out.
Find obscure album by an even more obscure vocal group.
— at least, I think it was a vocal group.

Alright, alright, I suppose the problem selection isn't that creative.
The key, really,
is to realize which ones are bombs,
which ones are hand grenades,
which ones are random junk,
and which ones can be ignored.

I need the key to my mother's constancy.

Copyright © C. Osborne 2020
Last Modified: Sunday, November 25, 2012 20:17:21 MDT