As a childhood connoisseur of Dial,
I am always amused by the workarounds:
fudge, feck and a friend of my mother
who will say Jeez-el for Jesus,
a benefit of which
it’s hard to stay mad at much
after hurling out Jeez-el.
My father, who never swears,
says Gah! instead of Fuck
even when under the hood
a bolt slipped deep down
into the engine. Gah!
My mother’s father was a mechanic, too,
and I like to ask my parents if he swore much,
(he never did in front of me),
and my father always gives a chortle
and my mother rolls her eyes.
Behind garage doors, you know.
I asked my father a little while back
why he never swore when even my mother,
who rubbed countless bars of soap
across my tongue,
is now full of shits and dammits
for all sorts of frustrations.
My father said he never saw how swearing
ever made anything any better.
And I thought, “Are we living in the same universe?”
You feel so much better after a good swear.
Until you don’t again.
But that’s like three whole minutes there.