Return to Bella Meow ~dianegreen

You’re strong as an ox he groaned

Southern backstreet bad

Guttersnipe boned

I was wrestling my dad 

 

I had double vision

He was triple tired 

I was nimble in quicksand 

Cornered he was mired

 

Coins tossed for his reasons to fight

My runaway jaunt 

Made Ma’s hair ghost white

She was grieving and gaunt

 

Greyhound busted 

Back from out west 

Mama had missed me like 

I’d been in the cuckoo’s nest

 

Dad would’ve thrown me out

But he was torn

Between the woman he adored and

The daughter he scorned

 

And I was just like him

A renegade spin

Proverbial haystack 

Needled in gin

 

Space between my teeth

Button nose slim

My dad and I were thick as thieves

Way back then

 

He was an orphan 

I was not 

His past life of misery 

He never forgot

 

Until I awoke like a sage 

Uncanny outrage

For the government settlers

Who made our people rot

 

Our underground ancestors

Grew into trees 

I roamed through their roots 

On my hands and my knees

 

I knew I was born outta

Dust weeds and grit

A twisted old oak

Said don’t feel so different

 

In a whisper, the tree spoke

To my spinning redhead

Your father & mother

Will someday be dead

 

Like your grandma your grandpa

Like all theirs and bleaker

We hear you loud and clear

We know you’re a seeker

 

A tribe is a circle 

Unbroken. Untamed.

And you’re strong as an ox 

As your dad once proclaimed

 

dianegreen©