Adolescence

I'm not the only one who can't live up
to Mother: impossibly sweet apple
pies, pristine vanilla cream, tiny snake
tattoo coiled just above one exposed hip.
She knelt in her lush rose-thicket garden
for hours, white shirt clinging to damp skin.
A spotlight of sun tracked her across the grass.
Never a swan princess, I was half-grown,
an awkward cygnet with pinfeather frizz.
Those hushed afternoons I wanted to be a lily,
some slender flower, immaculate curves.
No oily skin or greasy handprints where
all of us crowded inside the glass doors, watching
her hands get dirty and her hair gleam like a crown.