Reading a Sky's Stars

I had the money
to have you
but refused

and sewed my lips shut
so you could
be a whore

How to love you then
was written
in the stars

Fifty years have passed
since the earth
turned over

Pedro la Ponce sold
you on his
barroom stool

“I have just the girl”
was the line
he dished out

You had a husband
who needed
to find you

in time to ask you
if you felt
married now

that you were turned out
and taught how
a whore loved

sent by him to work
on your back
with strangers

and yes I wanted
to murder
the coward

as he feared I might
and said what
you told me

I had never paid
for the love
squandered then

You opened the door
and we left
together

and our love survived
through a life
that delights

I remember lines
queued up by
whoremongers

outside the brothels
no one’s born
to live in

My mother’s mother
left her there
with Alice

grandmother madam
across the
river bridge

from Oklahoma
Her mama drove off
to Detroit

and died in L. A.
choking on
her old lies

My mama grew up
orphaned in
Arkansas

and married Manuel
who could read
the sky’s stars

(30 December 2012)

copyright by Floyce Alexander