Sister with Broom

If the mayor’s mother had known what

her daughter was in for she’d have

signed her up for courses on the fallacy

of the commons and the notion of

neighborly grazing instead of the fine art

of sweeping a porch. Porches are no

place to prepare a future leader. Neither

is the school for the study of trees with

its Cheshire cats and snagged balloons

hat racks for disposable diapers and

homes for plastic bags and broken kites:

None of it pertains to the preparation

of a leader, no more than mothers who

turn their backs on family and leave their

daughters to fend for themselves. If

the mayors’ mothers had known their

daughters would soon be mayors they’d

have locked them in their comet-tail

cloud chambers. They’d have slid down

corridors of corn and winked around

in pails of milk. The mayors’ mothers

would’ve known the weight of daughters’

daughters’ memories and the brothers

who never had to bother with the

graceless how and hobbled never mind.