Like Fabric for Curtains

Sundried boxes n’ bolts; strip-cloth, near Franklin @ Vine

Hot-sticky summer’s sun itching tender skin holding breath

Yellow Viole, elegantly calling frayed edges to billow

Too few pennies, nickels, dimes, & quarters in momma’s cheap purse -

Sometimes paying rent with a smile

I was Small

Sweet

Simple

And at four, realized, she didn’t realize

Black patch, lazy eye, pulsating under lucite-blue-cat-rimmed glasses with sparkly tips

Wish-filled colors reimaged on cardboard and cloths for beds; and maybe a funky- 70s-gilded ashtray pretending to be a bathtub

Ivory lace & rainbow-colored silks turn into Barbie dresses and drapes for dollhouse windows

With Zero interest in the dolls themselves

I was Imaginative

Stoic

Aware

Other; at five

The pudgy, jovial fabric-man remembered me the next Spring, smiling as if only yesterday

Laughing at butterflies, brown ponies on cotton clouds, and babyish things I had no mind for

I spied instead, orange squishy fabric, mimicking the color of tangerines

Smelling of sweet-sour citrus & azure-blue days as memory recalls

Momma said soon; one day soon, pumpkin'

I was Obedient

Sorrow-filled

Crushed

At seven, when that shit matters

Thick, scratchy curtain-like material, white with bright green dots, had for cheap

Bejeweled with matching fuzzy pom-poms sewn as trim, made me proud

Old lady sisters; twins they were - Mrs. Brown & Mrs. Blue, I swear it’s true

Smoked unfiltered cigarettes as raspy voices lapped me up with pedantic, baritone vibration

“You look beautiful, Ms. Keri!”

I was Unaware

Different

Beautiful in my dress

Momma’s gift to me at eight, the last one I remember

I wanted periwinkle pallets with this & that shades of various blues performing perfect pirouettes

Pink fuzzies with light-to-dark shades & hues; the ones momma said meant love

Gawky, numb with paper cuts from sharp- ôthering-edges, I misunderstood

The Colors of Love & waited for you momma

But you were only 28; already suffocating with three bratty kids

I was Stoic

Alone

Far too white; it’s a thing you know -

I knew what color meant at twelve

Zen Diagrams are real for unkempt latchkey kids

Circles, moving from inward to outward, a perfect table setting for purple-rhythmic-art

Burgeoning lilacs; tweens & teens that zag & zig like beige rolling papers

Expansive years bond me to self-determination, yet

Respite was best had in gray-toned shadows; silence without tears

I was Without & Within

Fearful

Beligerant

At fourteen, lifetimes soak my soul like black oil stains on pinkish skin

Emancipated; strutting to art school as if nothing for a child too young-yet-glad-to-be-free

A faded, yellow Pinto bore broken handles & such, ferrying me to Fall’s season –

Where cranberry clouds @ Moma’s Café,& meters away, naked bodies swam

Ironic I admit, I didn’t tell you of Moma’s, momma, & so I tell you now, Winter came with Kasbahas, scented mint tea, & Medina’s tan/brown & black hide-animal-deaths, begging to become a purse

I was Sufficient

Enough

Resilient

Beautiful with little green dots, at sixteen; I was too old to be so young

As color-filled textures gave rise to resilience; like fabric for curtains tough & strong

My firstborn would be called autistic; & ah, what a tale that is to tell another time

My shit together, neatly piling parenthood in symmetrical rows to make sense of the nonsensical

Baffling-yet-Knowing his micro was my macro & so on; life, there; here; now

I was Courageous

Changing

Winged on bits of thread

At 27, pink fuzzies you spoke of momma, became love I could hear, taste & feel

My Late Boy, Taylor, who speaks wisely still, in riddles, rhymes, non-sequiturs, & such

Charting trails, & pot-filled tolls with various & vivid arrays of spectrum #wachamacallums

Tides becoming Me, momma; the sacred mother, I now know in you too

Capable & inspired, I invited Jace, a brother – six years hence, to come, stay, & Be

That responsibility I misunderstood like you did; not seeing his gray shadows; somber much like ours

The keepers of shame are not yet silenced when nurture is sewn

For You, Him, & Him, I was Strong

Stunning

Unyielding

Relentless & sparkly, momma, at thirty-six, I remembered; breaking our rusty-old chains

Older, wiser; grateful wrinkles etch thin skin - with synesthesic auras, no less, I tell you

And I wonder, momma, is what you couldn’t give the very thing you gave - to give me this?

To be inclusive, to become, to adore, to parent, and to proliferate the power of being

Through imagination unfolding, through you; the best me I always wanted

Gone with The Wind, momma, Like Fabric for Curtains

In conclusion of this tome-tale’d-light as a feather-poem, I fill a lifetime, and I declare:

I am Wisdom; Truth

It’s Hell on Earth to Grow

I get I am Different - if not agreed - f*ck you all, ya know?

At sixty, I know red is not blue, blue isn’t yellow, green, will be nary gray

And white will never be black.

We each are hues on a continuum of spectrum

In the truest story we tell ourselves, our choices are all called colors