Kelley White Double Wide Graphic by Paul Murphy Mother insisted, so after the surgery I sit like a kid on the back steps with the onions and winter boots to call the two Pearls from K-mart and of course they are breathless and weeping and I know they're thinking I'm just like their daughters, divorced, depressed, heavy, and how Mother worries I'll grow up to be the crazy fat lady with all the cats living in one room in the big old house but now Mother's fear is that they'll come to visit and of course they do, Big Pearl with her O2 tank and walker, Little Pearl all fidget in yet another wedding suit (this one, the Pink Tropic) from QVC and she'll talk about the wedding, postponed again, by Carl the Butcher she had a fling with in the sixties, a double amputee diabetic, his wife's dead now, so he calls her, came to visit but they couldn't get the wheelchair into her trailer (Big Pearl whispers she wouldn't hold her breath on building the ramp)  but Little Pearl's made room in the closet, bought a Queen size bed and I'm thinking how you called me after twenty-three years surprised to like me more now than that skinny little bitch, me, you kissed back then how I won't let you come see me how I'm thinking you might come marry me if you ever get diabetic and go blind

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