Words from a son to his mother:

Can I have a pair of PF Flyers, Mama?

Why, Son?

I want to fly away from the words of my father.

Words that regurgitate from his drunken belly,

up his beer-laced throat out upon his cigarette-parched tongue through his adulterous lips’ words that land upon covered ears that would make a pig vomit.

I want to fly from his black skin that smells of Beer Garden whores wearing dime-store perfume, and the stories the pimps tell of his encounters in dark rooms.

I want to fly from his hands, which land hard upon your golden face and the scars you carry that give evidence of his troubled life.

Get you a pair, Mama!

But where will we fly to, Son?

Does it matter, as long as we fly away together?