Tomorrow

I used to read my own poetry on a monthly basis at a local open mic platform. Held on the first Tuesday of every month, the event features readings, dance, songsters and instrument players, and occasionally a dramatic bit. When I started taking care of my grand-girls I kept writing poetry, but on Tuesday evenings I was reading bedtime stories and tucking toddlers into bed. This week I'm on a mini-vacation and the first Tuesday of June happens to be tomorrow. Since I've been away, the hostess has instituted monthly themes which performers may follow, or not. Portraits is this month's theme and this is what I will read.

No Daughter of Mine

they laughed,

Mama and Daddy,

and clapped when my six year old self

clomped into the kitchen

all decked out in Mama’s twirly skirt,

her black stiletto heels

her peasant shirt that drooped

off one shoulder like I’d been in

some tussle that would also explain the

smeared red lipstick and my

flowsy-blowsy hair.

Now, taking in my tooled leather boots

my sequined jeans

the silver ring she hates that adorns

our natal connection, she swears

(in her own Mama’s voice)

“No daughter of mine will go 

anywhere looking

like that.”

Her own smeared mouth

sneers at the Smoky Rose on 

my lips, the Purple Dusk on my eyelids.

I’ve become more a threat than

a daughter, a memory of

her own forsaken innocence.

Daddy’s empty space circles her shoulders

like smoke from her cigarette.

Photo credit: www.celesteprize.com