WHICH IS IT? WHICH WAY?


A title
A Tear, A Family
But would it not be truer still
To call it a family of tears
One grandfather, tied to a chair
All the days I knew him
Except a small memory, his and mine
Of a fishing trip
He helped me catch my first
Another grandfather, never known
Gone in a blaze of fire and smoke
Inside a boiler, before I was born
A father, so held within himself
As to be never known
A mother who was known too well
In all her tightness and meanness
Except perhaps to save face
With a touch of heart
For those who deigned bow to her throne
Who hated, maybe despised
The parents of he she chose to be with
Browbeaten by a mother I knew but didn't
Brought to tears by times
Raised in a family prone to meanness
Or so it would seem by history
One set of grandparents set upon by pain
One set separated long since and more
A brother with two sisters
Who stayed the distance away
One woman's venom known only too well
Brother and sisters driven from each other
Another familyk, another sister sweated
As two brothers watched [the shit fly]
Oh, animal manure, is that better
A sister, the only one, born from need
To love and be loved
By a mother filled with a male hatred
Or so it seemed
To the boy standing on the sidelines
Taking it all in, finding his place
Where he did not belong
In that lonely family of tears.

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