My Mothers Penmanship Poem by Jimmy Scanlon

Her penmanship was so stiff and proper
L's with their particular
Lean and balance of hip to toe
Her A's firm
No nonsense B's
Level shoulders to her T's
Proper innocent and attentive
Catholicized
The nuns had no argument until
She met my father
Her L's started flaring showing a loving curl at their base
Like an old wooden Dutch shoes toe
her W's dancing much too close to her I's
Tap dancing their way across a sentence
Standing next to her A's waltzing into the eyes of a paragraph
Daydreaming their way out the window
S's started smiling on their own
Her P's wandered hopelessly into the eyes of an O
And these darkly dressed celibate Magpies
The Sister Catherine's and Sister Mary's
Bustling about my mother's world
Circling her in glaring silence
Questioning
the lovestruck lilt and curl
Of my mother's Palmer penmanship