Mama Said ...
(there’ll be days like this.)
— The Shirelles
These folks ’bout to respect me into the grave.
At eighty Mama said, (mama said)
“People think you change when you’re old
but you still got a girl inside.”
And men could see her, too
— that pink silk dress —
soothe that hotel bellboy
“Boy, I’m old enough
to be your mama.”
He coy
“well, you ain’t.”
But seventy is prime time
for me to own what “elder” brings.
I reap myself with the respect they sow.
They don’t know I got the road
wide open in me.
Source: Poetry (April 2013)