Birthright

Number one Mom handing out water
On the sidelines to the team
Right there, yelling in the bleachers
When they crowned my sister queen
Right there, in every photo online
I’ve ever seen
Number one Mom for her new family
But left me when I was three

What do you do
What do you do with that?

My dad put his father’s bronze star
In a case on his nightstand
But most of what his daddy gave him
Was the back of his hand
He was a war hero and a real fair boss
And a churchgoing man
The bruises fade, but it never stops hurting
Where the punches land

What do you do
With that rot beneath the surface
You’ve just started to scratch
Those answers to the questions
You don’t know how to ask yourself
How do you carry what you can’t give back
All you’ve inherited after the fact
What do you do

Your family came to this country in chains
To a place that didn’t care
Where they were from
And tried to erase their names
And my family still lives on the land
We bought with blood and pain
And when our kids start asking
What do we tell them?
How do we explain

© 2019, BettySoo, Rebecca Loebe, Grace Pettis. All rights reserved.