ugly girl

thomas aquinas wouldn't have cared
that she was an ugly woman
and she certainly didn't give a rat in a tea kettle
how many angels danced on the head of a pin

but I try to be sensitive, and when I'm asked
I just say she's 'sturdy.'
that always seems to make the point
without being cruel.

Freud was a bit more of a busybody
and he would sit me down on the couch
and ask me if my mother was 'sturdy' too.

She was,
but she was also pretty.