The Financial Lives Of the Poets

CHAPTER 4

I WAS DRIVING AROUND THE packed Costco parking lot

looking for a space and listening to some guy

on NPR talk about America’s growing suburban poor

when I saw this woman with four kids-

little stepladders, two-four-six-eight-

waiting to climb in the car while Mom

loaded a cask of peanut butter and

pallets of swimsuits into the back

of this all-wheel drive vehicle

and the kids were so cute I waved

and that’s when I saw the most amazing thing

as the woman bent over

to pick up a barrel

of grape juice:

her low-rise pants rose low and right there

in the small of her large back

stretched a single strained string,

a thin strap of fabric, yes,

the Devil’s floss, I shit you not

a thong, I swear to God, a thong,

now me, I’m okay with the thong

politically and aesthetically, I’m fine

with it being up there or out there,

or wherever it happens to be.

My only question is:

when did Moms start wearing them?

I remember my mom’s underwear

(Laundry was one of our chores:

we folded those things awkwardly,

like fitted sheets. We snapped them

like tablecloths. Thwap.

My sister stood on one end,

me on the other

and we walked toward each other

twice.

We folded those things

like big American flags,

hats off, respectful

careful not to let them

brush the ground.)

Now I know there are people out there

who constantly fret about

the Fabric of America:

gay couples getting married, violent videos, nasty TV,

that sort of thing.

But it seems to me

the Fabric of America

would be just fine

if there was a little bit more of it

in our mothers’ underpants.

And that is the issue I will run on

when I eventually run:

Getting our moms out of thongs

and back into hammocks

with leg holes

the way God

intended.