Belonging


Sometimes Sara feels like an orphan, 
imagines herself raised by Nuns. 
Her dead mother never did like 
Sara's red floppy hats, long hair, 
calf-length skirts stitched with roses. 
She wanted Sara's hair permed, 
nails colored a proper pale pink. 
Her older relatives used to say 
Sara needed to find God, that she 
surely would go straight to hell one day. 
Sara figures God knows exactly 
where he is and doesn't 
need Sara to find him. 
Sometimes, though, she wishes 
she still belonged somewhere. She wishes 
she could see her mother again, 
sit at their old kitchen table, feet 
dangling, munching on fried chicken 
and crowder peas. She misses 
the family stories, her father 
in the upstairs bath, shaving, 
and the lighting bugs morse-coding 
each other through darkening pines out back.



Pris Campbell
©2008


Published: Empowerment4Women 2010





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