Fourth grade,
gifted program,
the teacher taught us how
to write cinquains for Mother’s Day.
Here mom.  

Cinquain,
a crappy form,
copyright Adelaide Crapsey.
For real that was her name, Crapsey.  

Ripoff,
American
faux haiku, syllabic—
two four six eight two syllables
cinquain.  

It’s lost,
the staplebound
chapbook the teacher made
of cinquains, my long gone first poem,
mother  

of mine,
but I remember
that I used the word old
to describe my thirty-one year
old mom.  

Mother
loving caring
has a job so she can’t
be part of the carpool, nice, old
mother.  

Something
like that, not true
and crap as poetry,
but at nine old was no insult,
mother.  

I showed
her my first poem
and looked up expectant
and she ripped the towel rack down
angry,  

hollered
I guess, to you
I’m nothing but an old
mother. I was just nine years old,
mother.  

My poem
wasn’t true. She
wasn’t caring, loving,
nice. I’ve looked everywhere for the
right words.  

My tears
are unmanly
but part of me’s still nine
and confused. Well, now we’re both old,
Mother.