A Coin-Operated Button-Down Collar
       

You had a job in accounting. You had a wide skein
of pink broadcloth, claimed it as an inheritance, but
who on earth would tax it, as every bee on earth died
for sins committed without the slightest flower. Your
mother held up the convenience store on my street.
She used you as the getaway driver. Nobody shoveled
that neighborhood out. Too bad you hadn’t been born.
Of course she really didn’t steal anything. There was
no section for sewing notions. Our mothers wanted
nothing but the entire royal wedding. The drinks they
invented while they neglected us. I worked myself all
the way through the storm sewer, only missed when
I wasn’t there to fetch more grenadine. You used
the word math like it was a sexual innuendo. Some
tailor closed down shop with exactly zero dollars.

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Copyright © 2012 Mary Biddinger All rights reserved
from The National Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission