Tattered Dreams and Sewing Machines

Those little girls with dresses 

Crimson, ivory, and cerulean blue 

Bows tied neatly at their waists 

Only delicately embroidered lace will do

But Mama sewed me jeans with flower patches 

Crooked hems through and through 

She said it’s my Monday through Thursday pair 

For the rest of the week the old ones will do 

And the little girls with dresses 

Will tug at the fraying ends of my denim 

I’ll spit at their swaying skirts 

Tongues of serpents, words of venom 

Mama cries alone at night 

For my crooked hems and my fraying seams

And later she’ll cry some more 

For her stolen youth and her American dreams 

For the broken promise of wealth 

And the land of the free

If you do unto others 

Will they do unto thee? 

But the humming of her sewing machine 

Will gently lull me to sleep 

Delicate cotton and taffeta

She’ll sew a dress all mine to keep

Alma Mark