I have been choking for seventeen years-
Mostly around my mother.
There were times in my early childhood
When her hands would clasp around my neck-
Jamaican sun in her eyes.
They’d squeeze;
And I’d wheeze for air.
But that contact has since been done.
No,
She has another chokehold on me.
Her breath for my own.
Ghastly spurts-burps-belches of food
Robbed me during childhood;
And as my adulthood nears the bend
She seeks to bring a quicker end.
No etiquette applies.
She chokes me at lunch.
She chokes me at dinnertime.
She chokes me at brunch.
Those hands again never reaching up
To cover or plug her stinking mug.
And so I’ve held my breath for years,
As my mother has choked me to tears.
« return.