Methology

Meth'd out mama with her
thoughts on backwards and her
chewing gum tongue
running laps in her mouth.
There are holes in her skin
and ghosts in her eyes.
She likes to tell me how she
lives for her kids
(they're 3 and 5),
how they make her world go
round. And every night after
they go to sleep she gets out her pipe
and lights, baby, lights.
And she sits on the couch
dismantling her knitting machine
so she can put it back together and know
how it works. She wants to make her babies
new, warm sweaters. A blue one for the boy,
a pink one for the girl, but she got it secondhand
with no instruction booklet. Her eyes are
vibrating and her lips are
unceasingly licked.
And when I enter the room she hands me a beer,
and wants me to show her how
it works, but I've never used a knitting machine.
So I sit next to her,
and watch her tinker.
She gets frustrated
and starts to cry,
because her babies are cold
and they need sweaters,
and dammit, this thing won't go back together!
She puts it down
and pops open a beer,
and tells me she needs to vacuum the curtains.
I light a cigarette
and watch her.