Someday They Will Both Wield Hammers

Somewhere east, a single mother
hides her daughter’s bra,
conceals the evidence of her
blooming behind a Jack pine door.

~~~OOO~~~

She descends the guilty stairs
in too tight heels, slips
money into a crack in the wall
with a bone-deep, leadened sigh.

Her heavy door opens in morning
shadows—another knocking man
ignoring the protesting snap of her
sacrificial kneeling body.

Her sex is like miming in the choir,
like the moon’s imposturous brilliance—
enough to misdirect his willful gaze
from her maternal exhibition.

~~~OOO~~~

Someday they will both wield hammers,
break open the wall, head west
to the Kansas wheat fields, a plot—
flat land, with no plans for stairs.