You're a Horrible Person, But I Like You - Donna Shomer

Fred Cohen taught us to
Find the good in people
And then right after that
You could give them ‘feedback’:

What I like about you
Are the shoes you are wearing
What needs improvement
Is the asshole standing in them.

My mother recited
This one poem to me
again and again –
About the little girl with the curl
In the middle of her forehead
And about how when she was good
She was very very good
But when she was bad
She was horrid.

You know that one?
I always felt sure that
She repeated that hellish verse
because she was trying to tell me something.
You know, first say something nice about the hair –
and then give the ‘feedback’….
I worried about a curl
that would somehow protrude ghoulishly
From my forehead
And I knew I was very very bad.