PILLOW TALK

Your brain can only be as big as my
vagina croons mom to son, cradling head
on belly, swooning like a torch singer
in the extravagant flicker of two
a.m. This fact, though true, will come to haunt
the boy for the rest of his upright life.

Brain first he bawled into the world, and brain
last he’ll meet his makers on junior high
trysts, in dorms and coupes, alleys, cathouses,
movies, rec rooms, on wrestling mats of shag
carpet, blowing beaches, wet summer lawns.
Brain size leveled off a hundred thousand

years ago. At birth a swollen quarter
of its final bulk (while the remaining
body weighs in at a puny twentieth)
a bigger noodle just won’t make it through
the demure pelvis. At least this accounts
for the vast number of Republicans

scouring our states, squinting, dim, beaveresque
in their excited ardor for chopping
up the landscape into edible chips
to be wolfed down with mild salsa
while watching Monday Night mayhem.
Hedgehogging bets with private schools and tax

cuts—cut the feed, cut the feed from Congress
on this pubic access channel, reinstate
domestic hiss: Mom rocks baby to Bach
and Aretha, wondering how this little
monster squiggled out of her. She coos
Your brain’s bigger than daddy but not me.