Painfully Pisces

"Did I ever tell you the one
about your dad being psychic?"
she asks, roping me in
like a proficient storyteller
and explaining my curse in the process.
I'm glad he's 'dad' again
and not 'father' or 'sperm donor'.
Those were starting to get as hurtful
as his five-and-a-half-year absence.
Word selection's key
when dealing with a typist.

Dinner at mom's was amazing
as usual, but it's this kind
of quiet conversation in her
dimly lit living room afterward
that's been making my visits
so rewarding as of late.
With her husband out of town working
I get to enjoy her company
without her being stressed as to whether or not
his food's hot enough or the kitchen
is clean in time for their program.
Maybe the void left when it's my turn
to go on the road this spring
will let other people breathe easier, too.
That's not so pleasant to think about.
I push it back out of my mind.

"We'd just bought a new couch
that he was very fond of for some reason.
One night when I was watching TV alone
in the living room he got out of bed
and asked me not to fall asleep on it
for when my water broke. As soon as
I stood up it happened. 'Whoosh',
right there all over the carpet."
How eternally disgusting that image is.
I start to reach toward the coffee table
for a drink that's not there.
The thought of my life beginning
with a stomach-turning mess of amniotic fluid
makes me feel less like a person
than one of the fish in my zodiac sign.
I mentally apologize decades later
to the person who had to clean up that mess.

"I went into labor at three in the morning
but you wouldn't come out 'til nine at night."
The childhood vision of my mom's Cesarean scar
hovering over her bikini bottom at the beach
while visiting Mickey Mouse and my uncle in Florida
during one of our summer vacations
makes me feel guilty for putting up such a fight
and leaving a mark to prove it.
"It was my big head, wasn't it?" I joke.
Mom laughs lightly into her stemless wine glass
as her eyes stare off into almost thirty years ago.
"No. God wasn't done perfecting you yet,"
she responds lovingly. In that case
I wish I'd waited a bit longer. Maybe some of
these flaws wouldn't show. The best of
my critics pick them out like black squirrels.
The rest of the cast doesn't notice, poor things.

The subject changes inconsequentially.
My mother comes back to her present dilemmas.
A man of the pen comes to grips with the fact
that he's part of another's own story somehow.