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Drama Queen
(Poem in response to Vytautas Pliura's poem, My Mother is Jean Harlow)

Your mama might be Jean Harlow but my mama is Joan Crawford.
She never beat me with wire hangers.

She tore my ass up with
Leather belts and bedroom shoes.

Instead of scrubbing the bathroom floor with Dutchman cleanser,
I had to clean out the garage, soak her teeth in Fixodent.

I helped her to the toilet after she went to the
doctor to have her bunions removed.

She never fed me milk and cookies after school.
She didn't bake cakes or knit sweaters for me.

The sweet potato pies, the golden brown turkey
were store-bought from Publix.

My mama was never into PTA meetings or throwing Tupperware parties.
She used to deliver telephone books door to door.

She never came to see me play a black Santa Claus
in my third grade Christmas play.

My mama is Cleopatra Jones with AK-47's and grenades in the glove 
compartment of her Monte Carlo. Your mama might be a Blonde Bombshell,

but my mama hot curls her hair.
She greases it with hair mayonnaise

My brother miscarried in her womb.
Until this day, I don't know where the hell he's buried.

So what if you grew up on a farm churning buttermilk, stepping in Angus shit?
I went to a high school where the principal said

I exposed my dick to some supposed white girl.
Her name was privileged information.

Who cares if your mother is Jean Harlow? My mama is Wonder Woman catching 
missiles like Frisbees, bending crowbars in her hands.

She works undercover at Radiology Associates
emptying garbage cans filled with hazardous waste.

She brings home greasy smothered chicken on Styrofoam plates.

She's Weezie Jefferson before getting a piece of the pie
on the Upper East Side.

Does Jean Harlow cook pig's feet ?
Whip you up a mess of mustard greens, Jiffy mix cornbread?

Does she wash shit out of your underpants or is she too busy playing a 
damsel in distress, draped over some man's arms like a bath towel?

Your movie-star mama might smell like Chanel no. 9,
but my mama smells like raspberry-scented shower gel.

So, your mother's Jean Harlow? If she's so famous,
then she won't mind if we invite a few friends

over to her place for a pool party.
View a couple of her old pictures that made her a star.

You think Jean can lend me a couple of bucks
to pay back my student loans?

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