IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK
Where I’m From
A poem of my origins
I come from star-crossed lovers
drinking whiskey from a water glass.
Sitting in a wobbly high chair
passed down from older cousins
while Ma watched the Huntley and Brinkley report
chanting not quite under her breath
“Good night, Chet. Good night, David. And good night, for NBC News.”
I come from a seamstress and a barber
when people let their hair grow longer
and sang about ‘let[ting] the sun shine.’
I come from cracked and crumbling front steps,
where doors were left unlocked,
dandelions were left to grow through sidewalk cracks,
our house with asbestos shingles
on a dead-end street of all boys.
I come from tangled up garden hoses,
chipped clay pots, and jump ropes
out of the garage in the springtime,
where the ’63 Impala took up the whole space.
My turquoise Schwinn came out of the back shed where spiders nested.
I come from pogo sticks, skate boards, and stilts,
dented tin pans with black oil from the old Chevy,
ancient sycamores with twisted branches
ramshackle forts with sleepovers beneath black skies.
I come from Red light, Green light,
clothespins with playing cards on our bicycle spokes,
I come from my mother’s garden.
Spices, vegetables, marigolds and zinnias,
scarecrows with button eyes, zippered mouths, and turnip noses.
I come from the same house
my sister and I sold
after our father joined his beloved.
I come from a time
that was hard to let go
when my heart was not yet broken.
As always, Thank you for reading. This poem is in response to a prompt by Debra G. Harman, MEd. and modeled on George Ella Lyon’s poem “Where I am From”
