Mother's Day

The brown child of a white mother

looking like no other on my block

or school or family, too

born of heartache and shame

she gave me the name that he chose

the man who fled, about whom she said,

He didn’t want you.

She did, always wanted a kid

but I could tell, not one like me

She wanted someone who looked like her

and the cuckolded husband

the sweet man who never asked

how a brown baby came from a Norwegian and a Dane,

he just offered his last name.

She wanted a child demure and graceful

a child with a face full of light not dark and chaste

full of questioning morals,

not the one who tripped over her own feet

was too shy to speak when spoken to

with a voice that carried so loud

it’d draw a crowd for the most confidential affair,

embarrassment filling the night air

when I only aimed to please and appease.

Damn it, Dawn, can’t you do anything right?

But I’m done with that slight

her criticism has ended

Her voice is no longer blended in me

she is 6 feet under and I am finally free