He was a cousin born with a brain tumor they removed but left him most befuddled. He came to visit in Charleston's edges where we didn't have a **** thing we didn't provide. I was the girl who worried about everything. Petty Bette they called me but **** them all. What if he falls off the porch and gets hurt? Don't fret, child, give him a piece of string and he'll trouble nobody. Amen. He spent the rest of the day pondering that string like it held the answers to the universe. I think that string might be the boy's God almighty. The lord works in mysterious ways I'm told. When I die in my fog I'll ponder that string.
Thank you, Bette for telling me the story of your youth that inspired this humble poem.