Dustin King

Deborah Does Dallas

Don’t phone Freud-admit it: When Debbie sheds 
her cheerleading outfit in the opening scene,

pubic hair like some barn animal, 
tan lines stenciled like where Gary’s Oakleys go, 

she is our mother, young again, 
using it while she had it;

every gripe, 
every revelation, 

every dream out of reach
once assigned full parenting duties.

Frankie, question: Are we to believe 
she fucked a whole city?

Slut-shamers! So what if she did? 
We were miracles, Frankie, maculately conceived. 

So why so afraid of what a mother did?

We aren’t the storyboarders of every bedroom,
not romance novelists, not the fuck police,

certainly no angels ourselves; According to our records 
we jerked off 26,142 times since adolescence, 

chalked up one and a half today. 

We presume Deborah never prioritized pleasure,
never went searching for the G spot,

rarely enjoyed Gary flopping on top like 
the smallmouth bass at the bottom of his Jon boat.

We know she elegantly or inelegantly
evaded hundreds, if not thousands 

of men’s advances, several assaults,
and still she kept the Victoria’s Secret Catalog 

in the bathroom, scrubbed the toilet seat, 
hauled baskets of crumpled socks and yellow-stained briefs

to the laundry. Load upon load upon load.
She dutifully waited by the door, Frankie, 

while we used up her fancy hand cream,
the only luxury she ever allowed herself.