It's Still Life

reH pum naH

I am an old tree. Apple most likely.
I could tempt a head into a turn
years ago. My mother once said,

“Where’d you get that cute little arse.”

I see Mum when I look in the mirror.
Well, not really; she’s dead, but there
are laughable similarities.

Two twigs off the same limb, although
I walked the verge more often, and
she believed warts came from frogs,

and it’d be unkind to say she couldn’t cook.

Millie B can cook, and her figure proves it.
Who’s Millie B you ask. It doesn’t matter.

Funny that I ended up writing poetry.
Mum said she hated poetry; that rhyming.
Mine doesn’t rhyme, I said, and then

she frowned — then it’s not poetry.

Mum’s full stop was like a boulder.
She had ideas about things, like
warts from frogs, and you’d go blind
if you picked your nose.