Sex Education
Another mom poem...
Sex Education
The sanctity of the living room
like an open page of a picture book.
Everything in its place.
Mother calls us to her,
cross-legged on the plush carpet
in front of the stereo console.
Sister and I are 6 and 7,
downy-limbed,
still creased by dreams of trees.
The cellophane cover crinkles
as mother turns pages.
The book came from a special section
at the library
and tells us things about our bodies
and the men we might love some day,
tumescence seeking our secret folds.
Making love not sex says mother
with the urgency of a sneeze.
We were made this way.
We will make our own babies this way.
It seems like second nature to us,
more of the poplar leaves rustling
outside our window.
Mother almost tells us too much.
But we are girls
and she doesn’t want the world
eluding us with misinformation.
When I go up a grade
I have sex education as a class
which can’t teach me anything
I don’t already know.