Mother Hips

Poison Oak

Mother Hips


The spiders and the snakes you've known me 
for at least a dozen centuries 
They know my poison's always at the surface 
In the bottom of the shadowed canyons 
is where I grow without companions 
For what I want you'd only be superfluous 
You can call all those like these defensive 
Who hear your claims and then seem apprehensive 
But if all the folks who touch him are against him 
Then he'll spread his oil on each and every one 

There are men who do not blossom in expression 
I've watched them live and I've never seen confessions 
It's who they are that speaks to those who listen 
And it's just their leaves that glisten in the sun 
There are days when I am sad and cold and callous 
There are days when I get mad at even Alice 
But she's welcome like a body into soil 
Like whiskers rising to the barber's towel 
But she gets too close and then defense swallows reason 
And she's the skin and I am the oil 
She's the naked skin and I am the oil