it’s not often that I
drop my drawers,
for anyone,

often when I meet a
stranger, my parents
become Vietnamese gun
slingers who only eat
red colored foods,
my brother has a peg leg
chewed off by the family dog,
in his sleep,

the dog’s,

not my brother’s;

we had flying squirrels as pets,
always had jelly beans for
breakfast, a tornado plucked me
clean up off the harvesting fields in
Kansas, delicately placed me
in the rice paddies, smiling,
and speaking in full grammatically
correct sentences,
at four months,
in Thai,

it’s true,
I enjoy a tale, but
digging in the earth
my mother on one side,
her black hair wrapping around her
throat, black eyes grinning
in still blacker lashes, her coco
arms plow moist chocolate
side to side till her bulbs are
rooted,
my father plastered with eager
blanched skin fastened with
god awful plaid shorts, a pink
polo, I can see the liver spots
taking their time on his calves,

the reason why they are here,
is the answer to who am I,
their miscalculated love making
inside a forum that doesn’t lend
itself to subtlety, wipes the sweat off
contentment’s brow, grandly bowing
to sauciness, hidden giggles,

in the blood and piss of life,

standing straight as an arrow,
before an echo of truth,
this skin that lends itself to tell tale
signs of glorious hand holding,
humming bones that have held
together marriages, pushed past
punishment, no longer needs
to be told it's good skin,

it's strong skin,

it's beautiful skin,

because some how, that just seems
self indulgent

I think I like the last line
found it hard to understand read it twice
something appears but I am not sure what it is.
not as clever as I thought I was

mel

EB,
There is a strength in the humor one uses to poke at the making of a self. You've strapped it to you and cinched the knot and it makes for a great read. I get it that the comma was meant to propel the reading, a kind of allusion to the lack of control one has with their origin. I worry it might seem gimmicky. You could go to different places with this and other versions, I think I'm falling for your mother...

extraordinary piece, EB.

larry

Hahahahaha! sigh<wipe of tear>...my mother would get a kick out of that. I know I picked up this pace (held by the commas) because I was given a large collection of Garrison Keillor readings, and that's all I have been listening to lately, by God that man has timing, isn't that suppose to be at the heart of great comedy? So...I suppose I abscent mindedly tried to emulate with my commas...do you have any particular area that comes off gimmicky? I wouldn't mind coming up with a new beginning its fun thinking of new orgins...

I will be rereading this piece a few times, but out of the chute I have to comment on typos.  Your wording leads me to believe you meant the word, "subtlety" rather than "subtly", and the last three "its" should have apostrophes.

The quality of your writing comes through, despite the misspellings, and I very much admire the mind and heart that combine to turn out such fascinating poems as this.

oh please don't change the opening -- you had me at Line 1 -- !

In the stanza that follows, a couple thoughts -- the gerunds got a little heavy, an awful lot of -ings -- love the flying squirrels, but perhaps omit "harvesting" and just go with fields; and maybe "placed" for placing [not crazy about delicately, but have no good reason why]; then the smiling and the speaking might be okay -- just seemed like a lot of -ings happening . . . know what i mean?  lynn

we had flying squirrels as pets,
always had jelly beans for
breakfast, a tornado plucked me
clean up off the harvesting fields in
Kansas, delicately placed me
in the rice paddies, smiling,
and speaking in full grammatically
correct sentences,
at four months,
in Thai,

A real beaut, EB. Yep - keep that opening. Up she goes

awww shucks, thanks guys :)

griffin thanks for the catches

lynn, its wierd that's what the first verison looked like, I'm not comfortable with taking harvesting out, just yet, but let me warm up to the idea...and yea I know what you mean about delicately

love jelly beans for breakfast

been here, always read what you're doing

hey, EB, just read this again and had one more suggestions -- maybe remove "the" before rice paddies.  I think this is the "voice" thing -- mine wanting to infringe on yours, -- oh well.

lynn

for some reason i can't explain (and don't care to, either) i absolutely loved this.  it just drew me in and held me there.
john

Well I had no idea it had wandered in here, thanks guys.

this is great poem, don't know what else to say, thank you for it

entrancing, witty and held me from start to finish

StellaR

Wonderful. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this.