My Mama Always Told Me.

Mama always told me.

©-MFB III 

Mama always told me
to marry a woman
with pretty eyes,
cause everything
beneath them
goes to fat, sagging,
and wrinkling.

But oh, when you
look in those eyes,
even at eighty,
you see her
youthful beauty,
always gleaming there.

Most girls haul
a long white train
at their weddings,
you gotta have
some weight to do that.

Besides which would you
rather snuggle with
some chicken bones
all hard against you
or a plump tomato
cuddled close.

Men get baggy too,
baggy pants,
bags under their eyes,
certain parts of them sag,
just when you
want them pert,
and the pot bellies
aren't always on
the wood stoves.

Hairy backs and ears,
waxy bald heads, and
Godzilla toenails
all become part of
that bronze god
you once married.

Learn to love
whats inside,
the package itself
is disposable,
biodegradable,
soon enough it is buried
in a landfill

of people.
but the soul

of your love
can shed

light on you,
forevermore if you
don't wound it
with callous remarks
about size,

shape, age,
or fading beauty.

We are all

just skeletons
wrapped in

pretty paper,
that time

unwraps slowly,
the true gift

is inside,
that always

made sense
in the bedroom
with my

favorite gal.

Learn to love
the as is,
as it will
far too soon be
the as was and

you will

be alone.