Mismatched Mothers,
Misplaced Sons

There is a special housing project reserved in hell
for mothers of forty-year-old sons who were still living with their mothers.
Each unit is four and a half rooms.
Steam heat is never a problem, but air-conditioning is.
The kitchen is spotless. Mother scrubs.
But the living room has potato chips lodged between the plastic covers and the couch.
The bathroom has that blue stuff in the toilet.
Mother's bedroom has a thick pink carpet.
Junior's room is full of Star Trek memorabilia
and posters of buxom warrior princesses on stained walls.
Every mother is condemned to live with another's son,
for only a birth mother could stand her own baby
and this, after all, is hell.
All the sons look like brothers,
bulging bellies full of devil's food cake, stained shirts,
brown pants each with the fly open,
underarms wafting their presence,
a brotherhood of the never married.
The aging mothers are served bitter coffee,
though they all asked for sweet.
And Weight-Watchers cottage cheese salads are served
along with deserts of ice-cream bonbons.
The waiters are their doting boys,
and these mommies always remind their little ones
between whose legs they plopped from.
The devoted sons whisper go to hell, but they're already there,
so there's nowhere to go, nothing to change -
even when the mothers and sons are properly paired.

Richard Fein

Richard Fein's mother always made goodies for him whenever he visited her, and then chided him for gaining weight.

If you've any comments on this poem, Richard Fein would be pleased to hear from you.