Karl Koweski

mother’s lil bro

I can’t respect
a thirty-four
year old man
who calls his mother
“bro.”

repeatedly
over the speaker phone
I have to listen
to his vapid
narcissistic
meanderings.

every sentence
basted with
a sociopath’s
false sauce
of canned emotion.

every plea for money,
every whining excuse
for his every
existential debacle

ends with
“hear what I’m saying,
bro?”

his mother
is trapped between
exasperation
and adulation.

in his entire
“adult” life
he’s never held down
a job longer
than three months.

one of these days
he’s going to grow up
his mother
continually predicts.

it just hasn’t
happened yet.

until then,
she wires him
another hundred dollars
for rent.

two hundred dollars
to help him
make his child
support payments
toward four children
who will never
know the joy
of hearing their daddy
call them 
“bro.”

four hundred dollars
to bond him
out of jail
for something
he was totally
innocent of

it’s just bad luck
“bro.”

hear what I’m saying,
“bro.”

thirty-four-years old.