Should I blame my father?
Is that who is at fault?
A man with a salty cobalt smile
A felon, turned male siren
Bringing every oak fortress
to her shipwrecking death
The wind, never able to drown out
Every sailor weeping, "How did we not know???"
If only we could remain children forever
blaming our parents and dissolving our sins from theirs
I want him to be in the court house
I want him to sign my name with a blue ink pen
I want him to paint midnight  on my eyelids
the way he did my mother's
I want to swallow every lump in my throat and purge it onto him
I hope he never washes the stains from his collar bone
Maybe then he could beat the yellow out of me
instead of her
Yellow
Blue
Black
The way the sun seems to set
But our generation of women have never been settled

How did I not know.

How did I not know.

That your smile would be my pearly gate to hell
That your ***** would produce my God--
The most gorgeous curly headed goddess to ever step foot on this planet
You will try to take her from me
I will never let you
You will try to stain her iris from blue to green
Her sapphire spirit will never be boxed by you
She will be the fortress that you cannot take down
Like a mine field
She will blow you up and I will collect the bones
You will starve me for years
I will fast even longer
I am her mother.