My mother—blogger, doll addict

cyber queen, sniper

at the eBay auction computer screen—

mixed her idioms.

From the get-go, for example,

became  From the gecko

when she said it.  Not the sharpest

bowling ball in the shed.

He side-blinded me.  Shithead thinks he’s cool

as mustard.  Thinks he’s right up my sleeve.

I escaped from New Jersey

for college, which opened up a whole nother

can of germs.  In emails I wrote: Professor,

I’ll have to mow it over a little longer.

Professor, without a question of a doubt.

I didn’t realize I made switches too

until I re-read them—a nervous,

first-gen scholarship student—

as I’m sure my mother didn’t think

she’d altered anything

in her life.  But that’s a different chiasmus

for a different line of thought,

not for nights like this one, alone

and happy mostly, my heart at the peck and call,

though, of those suburban woods

of my childhood again—

the ultraviolet yellow feathers

of witch-hazel thicket, serrated

huckleberry leaves—the understory

so dense, tangled to itself, that walking

a straight line becomes

a tight circle, and my mother’s voice is mine.