Drips of Herstory

what say you? vines of my past

did you suckle the honey

from my kin

as they buzzed past you

oblivious

to how you rooted your scent

deep in my veins, the summer yellow

of childhood abandon

                                                                                                                                          I was dropped from a black hole

part hurt fledgling – wild thing

bird of swift wing

part hothouse flower – wilting

salt crystalized in Death Valley

I am square peg in round hole

oft too dense of emotion

I vision my foremothers

stern and stout skirted

breaking ground and convention

setting down roots

of farm and family

twining their dreams

with my memories, sepia’d

                                I fit not well in the world, betimes

my spitfire tenacity ruffles

too many feathers while

my soft underbelly

is ripped raw from the teeth

of daily indignities

could they vision me?

those stalwart matriarchs

perseverance personified

who faltered not

from motherland to new world.

I trace our bloodlines

in the scars on my psyche

in moments, I imagine myself

unwelcome

 as an overly plump raindrop

plunking cold and abrupt

on a spring sunned bosom

joined apace in feigned ennui

perhaps we are all cicadas

screaming at seventeen years

invisibility

cramming all the living we can

into each moment amongst the leaves

we shed our shells

in search of beauty

gather independence

cling to the trunks of our past

securing center

and soar

 with our kin

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