Scissors Like Caesars

The first time you get sick and your mom

            isn’t there to

force-feed you chicken soup and massage

            warm oil onto your throat,

you’ll wish you never made fun of how

            she said scissors like

caesars when you were nine. You’ll

            learn that love

isn’t promised, that you don’t have

            the privilege of

adolescent self-hatred anymore, that

            one day you will

be Not Twenty, not eating half a sleeve

            of saltines and

writing poetry at two in the morning

            with the enormity of

your life stretching out lazily before you.

            This memory will

be as small as the summer thunderstorms

            of your childhood.