where's the remote?
poetry-prose-memory
I heard an ambulance today and stopped what I was doing to worry about it A 1984 Sally Struthers would speak for starving children for 60 seconds on TV, and my ema would watch transfixed and think of all the things she couldn’t fix and why would god let children starve, and can she do something about it, and is she supposed to do something about it, and what about her son, who will die too young, but she doesn’t know that yet my mom would watch transfixed, and isn’t this terrible, and she’d stare and stare and stare at the TV and think and think and think and she would watch transfixed and I would watch her watch it and everything around her evaporates and I thought I lost her like that’s it, my mother is gone into this other world of bloated famine flies dust heat, and when the 60 seconds are finally up, she will light another cigarette and cry I felt bad for her feeling bad, i felt bad for the kids on the TV and for the spotty work god is doing now I realize I am my mother’s child but feeling bad feels too bad, and I don’t wanna anymore I rather climb a tree and kiss its branches I rather swim naked inside a cloud i rather sing a duet with a bluebird i rather tickle the belly of a jelly fish my 90-year-old pal, Caroline, told me today that I am a biophile (i had to look it up) One who feels a strong emotional attachment to the living world holly crap, I’ve been a word I didn’t even know all this time now I watch TV and I am transfixed by all the things I can not fix my mother’s homeland won’t stop burning I’m glad she’s not alive to see it what would Sally Struthers say? I met Sally once. I won a trophy when I was 15: best comedic portrayal as the nurse in Romeo in Juliet. my school performed a scene at the Ahmanson Theatre downtown. Our picture was in The Daily News. I wanted to ask Sally Struthers if she ever wanted to punch Archie Bunker in the face I wanted to ask Sally Struthers if she thought calling Meathead a Meathead kept him a Meathead But I didn’t ask Sally Struthers anything I just held up my award and we smiled for a picture we didn’t talk about the commercials and my school kept the trophy