Malachi
(Winner - Teen Poetry Contest)
Our TV's going
and the artist's wife is
belly dancing
to Spanish guitar
while her mulatto children
run through the house
with newly shorn heads
cold where dreads once hung
like Bob Marley snakes.
She writes love letters to
"my endearing husband"
as incense burns on Buddha's
head.
Paint splatters the floor
photographs of their kids
hiding among corn fields.
She will make them
play instruments, so in years
they can form their family band
and teach their baby sister
the drums, the violin, the piano, the
guitar
as their older sister sings a cappella
and their mother captures the day
with her camera,
her husband next to her
sketching...
She lays across his lap,
anklets jingling,
cigarette from fingertips
as he kisses her lips
and her son watches from the
window
and wishes he will one day
love like that
For now, he roams the woods
behind his house on the hill
above the dirty river,
walking with his dogs
named after a painter and a
magician.
At night, he sits on the floor
eating macaroni and cheese
with his family listening to
fiddle music, his mother's eyes
dancing like the candles
that light the room.
by Shona Watt
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