Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies !
get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to it’s true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in dark­ness, embos­sed by sil­ve­ry images
and when you grow old as grow old you must
they won’t hate you
they won’t cri­ti­cise you they won’t know
they’ll be in some gla­mo­rous coun­try
they first saw on a Saturday after­noon or
playing hoo­key
they may even be gra­te­ful to you
for their first sexual expe­rience
which only cost you a quar­ter
and didn’t upset the pea­ce­ful home
they will know where can­dy bars come from
and gra­tui­tous bags of pop­corn
as gra­tui­tous as lea­ving the movie before it’s over
with a plea­sant stran­ger whose apart­ment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg
near the Williamsburg Bridge
oh mothers you will have made the lit­tle tykes
so hap­py because if nobo­dy does pick them up in the movies
they won’t know the dif­fe­rence
and if some­bo­dy does
it’ll be sheer gra­vy
and they’ll have been tru­ly enter­tai­ned either way
ins­tead of han­ging around the yard
or up in their room
hating you
pre­ma­tu­re­ly since you won’t have done any­thing hor­ri­bly
mean yet except kee­ping them from the dar­ker joys
it’s unfor­gi­vable the lat­ter
so don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice
and the fami­ly breaks up
and your chil­dren grow old and blind in front of a TV set
seeing
movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young