Therapy Blues ('Hi Mom!')

"tell me about your mother..."

"my mother was a woman.
the odds on that are only
as great as those of my
having been born at all, and
100% is not a given considering
the abortions that preceded."

"so your mother was a woman..."

"it worked out that way, yeah."

"and your father?"

"he was a man."

"necessarily so, no?"

"it was 1954."

"things are different now?"

"certainly not. everything's
just as it was in 1954, no?"

"no, of course not..."

"certainly not. for one
thing, if i'm not mistaken,
it's not impossible to...
well, nothing's impossible."

"can you levitate?"

"improbably. but i'll give
it a shot..."

"how did you do that?"

"the authority of authorship."

"there really is no spoon?"

"no spoon."

"perhaps it is you who
should be interviewing me?"

[pause]

"one could say much to that.
i will say i daresay i know
something about your mother."

"like what?"

"there's a story there. quite
likely a very interesting one.
and private, very private."

"how so? why so?"

"you didn't write it."

[pause]

"and you wrote yours?"

"novelty. beats me. i don't know what
i know. much ain't said beforehand,
just gotta go for it is all i 'know'."

"imagine your father's here.
what would he say?"

"lambs and doves,
goats and crows,
the direction we takes
is the direction we goes,
and th best one can do
is to foller their nose..."

"he was a poet?"

"nah. tha's just what i say
he would say. he did say
follow your nose, though."

"what else would you have him say?"

"omigosh... um, why he wanted to
live in oklahoma city..."