Friday, August 15, 2024: Jackie Chou's "The Mother I Never Became"

 

If I were a mother

I would not be cool at all

I'd talk way too loud

even for dim sum

drop the shrimp dumpling

between my chopsticks

I'd not know new songs to sing

to the car radio 

belt out too much Green Day

not enough Olivia Rodrigo

I'd wear odd prints and sequins

from the Ross clearance racks

and have no job for my kids 

to tell their friends about 

I'd be the kind of mom

that makes her children say

"Why can't you be 

like other moms?"

© 2024 Jackie Chou

Jackie Chou holds a BA degree in Creative Writing from the University of Southern California, where she studied and held the position of vice president in a cultural organization, an experience she looks upon with nostalgia which still influences her poetry today. She has published two collections of poetry, The Sorceress, and Finding My Heart in Love and Loss.