Parenting

I hadn’t thought much about profanity

since my mother washed my four year old

mouth with soap-

My mother was a school teacher

She knew first hand, about the fallout 

from loose potty language

I repeated  “You are a Fucking Ass!”

after the initial reproach, like a big kid-

Just like the big kids

My brother was the mannequin

for new words I picked up at the park.

Had I tried them on my mother

I might have lost my tongue altogether

There aren’t report cards for parents

but I’ve come to learn that “Fucking ass”

from your child, is as close to an “F” as it gets

I monitor words with the yardstick

of the Quebec language police, measuring

the size of French and English letters

Still, I yelled FUCK

when I threw my back, leaning down

to tie my three year old son’s shoes-

It was a restrained response

in relation to my pain, but it scared my son

who must have read the memo about bad words

He repeated-

“Mama say FUCK, Max no ike it;

Mama say FUCK, Max no ike it”-

over and over and over and over

I didn’t know who’s mouth to wash

to end the indiscriminate broadcast

of my maternal misconduct