I Will Wait for You to Come Home

A yard was made, wavy and clean
One day, as the sun looms out in its yellow gleam
At the yard I’ll wait for you to come home
You’ll run into this house, from wherever you roam
Sometime not today, maybe after a big ten
You’ll realize this was good enough
The question is when?

I will wait for you to come home
And hope that you are different
Simpler
As soft as the sound of the rain
My heart beats of you
In joy
And fear

Distance was just a state of mind
I thought of you in my daily grind
You, a daughter and girl, just a child gone,
I ask to this day, where did it go wrong?
As the breeze comes in, chilled and sweet
Maybe you’ll get this
What could it beat?

I will wait for you to come home
Your hand of rage is still,
In my dreams, at least
Kind
Not hateful
I will wait and wonder
I will wait and cry

She still thinks of you too,
Questions where in this deep blue
Is her own sister, who just upped and left?
May she come in her sadness, joy was the theft
“No” was never learned
She knew all too well, her hands turned
To reveal those little memories you left behind

I will wait for you to come home
And she’ll run and pace
Seeing what this was,
Lost
Aimless
I will wait for you, however
And call on day and night
I will wait to see it for myself

I will wait for you to come home
And hope that you are different
Simpler
As soft as the sound of the rain
My heart beats of you
In joy
And fear

The Reality of my Dreams

No man’s law is final,
But to him it is what all that is.
He says what is real,
Truth.
But never is the truth so simpler,
Than the dreams that stand behind it.

I was no different in that way
There were so many things that could be
Different
Better
And I had held them dear under my heart
Cradled and swathed in my motherly light
Tender and good
It was all I had to my name
And it was all that I needed, I believed
To have my truth in some fame,

I wanted a together I never had
Between mother and daughter
So long it had distanced us
What was never meant to be,
But in the reality of my dreams
I saw hope in what vanished
And like I baby I needed it so
But in the reality of truth
I knew it was just too good

In the reality of my dreams
We could be a real family
But I knew deep down

My sweet girl was gone

In the reality of my dreams
My other daughter wasn’t afraid of you
But had that not been so

Her life wouldn’t be so broken

In the reality of my dreams,
I wouldn’t have to pretend
But things aren’t so clean cut

And grays are too much

Too much

And in the reality of my dreams,
I knew it all too well
My laws were meant to be broken

It wasn’t real
And I died
In the reality of my dreams

 

Dee and Maggie

Playhouse in blush pink and baby blue
Mother and Father
Siblings and pets
A happy home for them all

Dee was a girl, golden in her age,
Tender hair and high hopes
Ambitious, no never an answer
She was a daughter who wanted the world

Maggie was the girl, burned at the heart
Arms as dark as the streams of the night sky
Plucky, still, but silenced so
Though as the months moved, she stayed by my side

Dee and Maggie
Both from the same womb
Still so different in their ways
Rising like the sun and moon
Dee and Maggie
Girls raised on the bones of my back
Had one become the earth
And the other sway on winds on her own track
Dee and Maggie
Dee and Maggie



Bones and blood to the core
One was the sky, a summertime breeze
The other the fragile snow of the cold nights
I had loved them so, but was that enough?

I cursed my name, finding they couldn’t be like

Daughters who loved and played in that Playhouse
Some happy family, like I told them once
It seemed it would never come to light
Never reach into Heaven’s gate

Dee and Maggie, My only halves
         Soft distance that kills me so slowly
         Their feet of youth patter like rain
         Trapped in the back of my brain

Dee and Maggie
Both from the same womb
Still so different in their ways
Rising like the sun and moon
Dee and Maggie
Girls raised on the bones of my back
Had one become the earth
And the other sway on winds on her own track
Dee and Maggie
Dee and Maggie



My two and only, who live in a broken Playhouse
         Dee in the fine pinks
Maggie of the cool blues
How did it end up this way?

How?
Dee and Maggie
Dee and Maggie













 

Burn Scars

There was this girl I knew
Sweet like honey milk I used to make
I loved her from the day she was birthed
She worked awful hard, to the bone
This girl, you see, never complained
This girl, you see, never was getting a gold goose
Sad, sad, so real bad-
          But don’t feel so just quite yet.

All she got was burn scars
From a fire that hurt her so much
And cry a good bit, next,
To learn that she watched her own house burn
Burn, Burn real bad-
         Like bad dreams came ‘live just for her.

Like her life was like it, poison ivy
And still, this girl never said a word
Lulled into a day sleep, eyes open and shut
I can tell you how I know her so well.
I knew.
I knew.

This girl wasn’t quite a woman yet, just a child
But I can tell so, that she’s all grown
Grown on the inside
Grown into someone that I can say loves me
Someone I can say I love
Girl, the girl-
Rough and bad and good and perfect.

Still, with her burn scars
Still, with no life outside what she’s known
This girl, I can say, was damned
But made it, for what was there,
What little there was of it.
She is.
She is.

Her husband will be named John Thomas.
He’ll have mossy teeth and an earnest face.
She’ll live without her eyes, struggling with words
Try as she may, try, try as she might
This girl will never be all that bright,
This girl will be haunted by the fires,
That crumbled her home once
And across her arms and legs
Burns, burns, will kiss her skin
With bad and evil meant from within.

Burn, burn, burn real bad
This girl will have to live
And be okay with her misfortune, say she’s glad
Try, try, and try to the end
This girl will smile through it
Lulled into the silence of her burns
Burns that hurt now, more than ever
Even after they died out-
Knowing what they had come from

All she got was burn scars
It’ll be all she’ll know for now

Cry a good bit, next,
To learn that she watched her own house burn
Burn, Burn real bad-
         Like bad dreams came ‘live just for her

Like her life was like it, poison ivy,
And still, this girl never said a word
Lulled into a day sleep, eyes open and shut
I can tell you how I know her so well.
I knew.
I knew.
I knew that, and for her I’m better.

I’ll Never be a Good Singer

Angels are like the hymns I sing
Beautiful as the sun chasing the stars
But I’ll never know what they quite mean

I have man-working hands
With a heart sheltered by big bones from my ribs
On cold winter nights, I wear flannel nightgowns
And overalls to survive by day
I’m no lady like they want me to be
But a worker first to my name
And mother second the rest of the world

I have no education, I never asked questions
I have none to call my own,
Of the sad and soft fear that I have lived
Being of a skin color as dark as the midnight cast over the land
I know what it’s like to lose, lose, lose
Never win, never win
So I pray
I pray

At the church bells, I sing off tune,
I know I’ll never be a good singer,
I know that my voice isn’t suited for the choir
I know, I know
I’ll never be a good singer,
My ways are set to man’s work
And for all my struggles , All my strife
Even if that God’s will isn’t mine,
I’ll sing
I’ll sing

I live in a house with a tin roof
I live with my back turned to the emptiness it brings
Holes in the walls, windowless and broken
I turn away from what is there
As the homeless I walk along

But as this life is meant for me
Since I know that I wasn’t meant for anything else
There was only one thing
That I know that I cannot be taken off

At the church bells, I sing off tune,
I know I’ll never be a good singer,
I know that my voice isn’t suited for the choir
I know, I know
I’ll never be a good singer,
My ways are set to man’s work
And for all my struggles , All my strife
Even if that God’s will isn’t mine,
I’ll sing
I’ll sing

I sing, as bad as I am
But with this life I’ll bellow out
For I am here
I am here
And sing I will
Sing, Sing

Angels are like the hymns I sing
Beautiful as the sun chasing the stars
But I’ll never know what they quite mean

Changed Girl

You came back
There you were
Was it fate and design?
Or the complete chance of this moment?
You came,

I saw you still, from the rays of the strong sun
Legs that looked liked God himself shaped them
You,
You were there

Along your side, a short and stocky man
Hair all over his head, a foot long at least.
Him,
Him with you,

You had changed so much
A dress cascades your body,
Sunlight, warmth colored the fabric
It’s burning bright like the hot sky
Jewelry and gold and glitter
Dance along your midnight skin.

You walk, flowing as an angel would,
I liked the way you moved.

Perhaps it was what I supposed to get

You’re a changed girl, a changed girl
A changed girl, a crazed girl

You spoke to each other in funny words
But still to me and her you commanded us
Perhaps you were still the same
But how far had you gone, my girl?
How
How far did you go?

You said your name was something I couldn’t,
Couldn’t understand.

Perhaps you won’t tell me where,
Where you went.

You’re a changed girl, a changed girl
A changed girl, a crazed girl

You came back
There you were
Was it fate and design?
Or the complete chance of this moment?
You came,
You came to be someone I won’t ever know
Ever, Ever
Never again.

You’re a changed girl, a changed girl
A changed girl, a crazed girl.

You’re a changed girl, a changed girl
A changed girl, a crazed girl.

Aunt Dicie

I won’t say it again!
I won’t.
My name is Wangero.
I won’t belong to you,
At all, at all
I’m no slave.
No slave for you to tell me
I’m not her, not Aunt Dicie.
No history will tell me otherwise
I won’t listen
At all, at all.
I’m not Dee
I’m not your daughter
No history will tell me what to do.
At all, at all.

but
who
were
you
all
those
years
ago…?

Everyday Use

Was it a curse or blessing,
Mistake or design?
That you, you were the martyr
For all of this time?

It was everyday use,
Those wood benches from that time ago
It was everyday use,
That churn top you wanted so suddenly
It was everyday use,
My house and home
Not one thing could be taken
For idle decoration.

But you dared to say that it was beautiful
For beauty’s sake alone
I had left them for its purpose,
God, could this girl atone?

How could you find them so lovely now?
While as a child you hated it all so,
No nationalism could save them
For they were mine to use now.

Heritage, for what it was worth
Wasn’t all to me or her.
But these parts of our past
Made us who we were.

It was everyday use,
Those wood benches from that time ago
It was everyday use,
That churn top you wanted so suddenly
It was everyday use,
My house and home
Not one thing could be taken
For idle decoration.

Some quilts that I held onto
For the cold winters to come
Had you fascinated for their invention
But once I believe, you’d think them dumb

For what was the good?
For who would appreciate their beauty?
If they hung up so sadly
In some room you left them
Quilts are for warmth,
Not some homely item.

I was glad that it ended somehow
That you were this way
And I was the other
Perhaps you didn’t belong after all
Perhaps this was better
Better after all.

It was everyday use,
Those wood benches from that time ago
It was everyday use,
That churn top you wanted so suddenly
It was everyday use,
My house and home
Not one thing could be taken
For idle decoration.

END