Rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes type two
She said, I’m sure your sins follow you.
It could be worse you know, there are feeding tubes,
Salem Slims, chained all day long but your lungs stayed strong.
There was a fire still burning, a grin and a laugh.
It just is and just was… your memory never lasts.
Sitting on that porch year after year.
Sucking down cigarettes, looking at a birdbath,
wildflowers in a tire, and overgrown shrubs,
you lit another one and had a different kind of love.
Laid down at 16 in a Georgia cornfield by a traveling man.
You didn’t know what he was doing and then…
they took it away and that seemed too easy for you to say.
Beetle under a willow tree,
no black tar, doors left unlocked.
These parts weren’t the city,
just dirt roads filled with a cool breeze,
magnolias, pines, oaks, and sycamore trees.
You liked to reminisce and swear the heat was from that new street.
Years went by, three more boys,
you’re not supposed to see your offspring die.
One, no way to know, two drug abuse, three the bottle,
four not around, until it was your time.
He finally came to town to take your home since 1943,
if there was any remorse I couldn’t see.
You weren’t family but you were close.
I came to see you before they put you in the ground.
If all of this means anything then it’s not obvious or easy.
The meaning is left up to me.
