Adolescence
Mary Bamburg
I ' m not the only one who can ' t live up to Mother : impossibly sweet apple pies , pristine vanilla cream , tiny snake tattoo coiled just above one exposed hip . She knelt in her lush rose-thicket garden for hours , white shirt clinging to damp skin . A spotlight of sun tracked her across the grass . Never a swan princess , I was half-grown , an awkward cygnet with pinfeather frizz . Those hushed a ernoons I wanted to be a lily , some slender flower , immaculate curves . No oily skin or greasy handprints where all of us crowded inside the glass doors , watching her hands get dirty and her hair gleam like a crown .
* A version of this poem was first published on January , 2016 in " Tracks " by Inwood Indiana .