Black Braids

You with the beautiful red face
There laughing on the bridge in Zeerikzee
Do you still have black braids
Pretty as a mare in may
Do you wear a checked dress
Knee socks pulled up high
That’s the way you look best
Matches your checkered eyes

Your father he’s a poet
Written you one book of poems
But your mother she is caught on you
She’d paint your portrait
She can’t paint your portrait
Your mothers Michelangelo
But painting she’s denied
30 years it’s punished her
It’s like she’d swallowed turpentine
As if she’d swallowed turpentine

And do you still have black braids
Pretty as a mare in may
You who age but don’t age
I hope your laughing your life away
Pretty as a mare in may

Winter 2000
New Orleans