November Stripped #1

Sally lost her voice in fifth grade and had it returned at 23
when a slightly bigger version of herself couldn't fit in any of her jeans.
A few months later the baby came
and Sally raised her voice to scream along side her crib
all night all day
till the baby girl turned 13.
Sally was a mother of the sunshine and storm clouds
all the little misfortunes that followed the growing family on the road
where they skinned their knees and chipped their nails
trying to make their one bedroom apartment a home.
When Sally's little world grew to accomodate a man,
her child now 18, grew out of the kicking and the screaming
and turned to sipping black coffee in the kitchen
growing her hair long into thistles that brushed her hips and kissed her thighs when she turned 25.
Sally lost track of time and never bothered to find it again,
so when she died she left behind a 30 year old residue,
thriving in the dry spells and spanish moss of southern Mississippi,
home of a horizon and a destination
and her daughter young at heart.