Ben Newell

mom’s mid-life crisis

From time to time
I
find Dear Abby good for a poem, the confused
and distraught
seeking advice and getting it
can be quite conducive to creation, especially when you don’t feel like writing about
your own problems. 

Last Wednesday’s column was a real gem, just too damn good
to pass up—

A young lady utterly confounded and humiliated by her mother,
her 44-year-old mother w/pierced nipples;
to make matters worse
mom has a habit of showing her perforated tits
to her daughter’s friends.

Inappropriate and pathetic, Abby responds, but in the end
the daughter
just might have to learn
to live with it.

And I say pray
mom’s mid-life crisis doesn’t dip
below the belt.

Ben Newell, 44, works as a library flunky at a small college in Jackson, Mississippi.  His poems have appeared in Chiron Review, LUMMOX, Nerve Cowboy and other underground publications.  He recently stopped taking Lexapro, cold turkey . . . .