Why Mothers Never Wrestle Their Sons or Daughters

I wrestled my mother in a dream last night, as grandmother
watched from the couch. Then I took them both on, at the same time,
just to keep things interesting. Today at lunch, I asked mother,
Why, after all these years, have we never once wrestled?

You sweet dear, she cooed, I wrestled you when you
were a blind, toothless cannelli bean. It was a life or death match.
You wore a hood and I wrestled that blank cloth of hope and the sour stew
of you, shotgunned into my belly, for eight straight months.

I wrestled with fear--the scalpel’s sting was meant for me,
the stainless steel nun’s hands for you. I ended up pinned on my back,
an inverted turtle thrashing in a slack-tide of tropical water.
The warm waves carried you, pitching and bobbing in a bowl of bone,

a chubby canoe, anonymous survivor. You were in the first real brawl
of your life, and then you came to be, pushed then pulled through,
forcep bruised, body-mottled and bowlegged, perfect in your need.
Your clay smudged face, opened and closed,

screaming in victory, while I lay in the middle of the wet
canvas, spent and silent, as the crowds paddled off to cash in
their winning tickets, hand out fine Cuban cigars.
Wrestling’s your father’s job. Once with you was enough for me.

I Want To Be A Young Cowboy

jump from galloping horseback,
to hook then twist the necks
of adolescent cattle until their bodies
roll over, in big submissive heaps,
and I climb on top, curved horn
in gloved grip, in control of this sawdust
world. At night, calves twitchy-dream of me
and I of them.