Inside My Sisters Satin Panties Poem by James McLain

inside my sisters satin panties
My mother, the dead, blue-skinned and elegant;
to be like secrets of magic as well as science;
these were aspirations that I couldn’t believe
other boys didn’t hold on too.
Who would want to be the Superman
and go around hitting things,
when Jesus could create life out of words?
Some from the dead, others wore eyeliner and jewelry.
They’re subtle.
Alexander was to great.
They know the secrets of life and death,
not just how to throw a lightning bolt down from the clouds.

For the queen mother, a god’s softness was refined.
This wasn’t queer; it was regal.
I began connecting power and prestige with the trappings
of feminine gender in my already
eccentric nine-year-old head.
I had never felt up a girl in the transsexual sense,
but as a kid I felt as though life would’ve been easier
if I were born female, or at least tossed both parts.

I had other reasons to identify power with femininity.
My father, an alcoholic,
was away on business half the time,
off in some exotic location like titty bars or
Mons Venus,
filming episodes of selling life insurance policies.
He got to be like
Tarzan plunging into green jungle temples.
I wanted so badly to go with him.
Instead, I spent long stretches of time with my mother,
being raised by her, by my sister,
and by an interchangeable cast of girls and stepsisters.
Associating femininity with authority has, as a result,
always seemed natural to me.
Mom should have never been in charge, because.

One afternoon, my mother surprised me by saying,
“Guess what?
I love her tenderly, where nothing is exciting. Even in death.

For thrills,
I used to wait until my mother
and aunt were absorbed in each other,
then I’d sneak into her bedroom and open her bottom drawer.
This is where she keeps her prosthetic breasts.
I loved to suck them and feel the fake nipples.

Just below her breasts.
It was the sixties, and she has never looked more fashionable.

I got bored reading and painting Michelangelo
into pictures with gay women that really loved it Greek.
I tried to read my book but it has always been difficult for me to read inbreeding, I rarely disobeyed my mother.
Disappointing her or worse, angering her, is a fear I carried with me for years into her manhood, an ice cube in my hairy pocket.

Starving,
I knew I’d have to wait a queen’s reign before dinner was set
before me at the sushi restaurant and lounge,
our usual eating place.

Wash up and get out.” I did as I was told.

“Panties are there to catch the drips after you pee, or if you have to go so bad you start leaking. You will wear panties, because no one wants to see drops of pee on the front of your warts.”

Once, I was waiting at school for my babysitter to pick me up, Wearing panties didn’t help me that day.

My mother has also told me that women urinate just a little
when they sneeze,
particularly if they’ve never had a baby.
I don’t know if this happens to most women,
or just to my mother.
Her odd bodily issues and stranger explanations
for mysterious phenomena
(such as the reason why black dogs in white neighborhoods
bark at brown people– because dogs like garbage,
and black people take the garbage away)
have convinced me
and that I cannot believe anything she ever told me.
This may be another reason that I see something like gender
as arbitrary. In my home a boy wearing panties,
reality was a subjective thing.

The need to wear pink panties was not arbitrary to my mother.
I had to hide the fact that I wasn’t wearing any,
I tried to hold this information in,
but at nine years old a boy just didn’t have the power too.
I suppose I just wanted to see what could happen.

“I’m sorry., I forgot! I’m not used to peeing for myself! ”

“So are you wearing the same dirty panties you wore all day,
after you took your shower? ”

“No. mother, I’m not wearing your panties.”

In the rear view mirror, my mother frowned.
Despite the subsequent silent flatulent treatment,
I had to hide my impish grin,
knowing I had trapped her and that she wouldn’t
make me put on her used panties.
I could feel my boy parts airing out.


My mother sighed and left the room.
When she returned,
she threw something the color of chocolate
down on my face.
They landed without making a sound.

“Put these on.”
I can’t disassociate my mother’s words from the same line
that Dr. mum-a-lumster says to
“Here, put these panties on.
They’ll make you feel less like a boy,
open there, more vulnerable.”

They were my sisters satin panties,
all stretched out from her size zero hips and buttocks.