I Stole my Mom's Lesbian Lover

Claudia Grinnell

        Deep down and contrary to its better judgment, the bourgeois
        character tends to cling to what is inferior.

                                --Theodor Adorno

I never brought her roses
but last week I went to the tailor
on Armond Street to have him zigzag
an old scar on my arm. At night,
I told her we fought over her
and that mother raked a broken bottle
across that arm,
screaming all the while
how she could have drowned me
in the bayou when I was small,
how my body would have swollen
blue and purple to twice its size.
Here, woman! This is the wound
I bear for you, I said,
and, Sooner or later
you'll love me.  A flat shimmer
swam through her eyes, like a bloated
fish, like a bad choice
for christmas dinner.
Someone has to cut the grass,
she said, make sure the blade
is clean.  She watched me
through the window, watched
as I pushed through high grass,
my arm bleeding, the moon licking
the blood to return
it later as rain.

Claudia Grinnell