I grew up amid chainbound stories
adorned with dark family secrets
like the phantom itch of severed limbs,
the stories my family carried to this country
in carpetbags and unhinged suitcases
with broken clasps bundled with leather belts
made of discarded bridles, the horses long dead.
The stories that held us captive
The stories that held us captive
were whispered around kitchen tables
littered with an ancient tongue that was not shared
but hinted at—we learned secret words but not syntax,
the whiskey glasses jumped like startled hares
as fists punctuated each rebel sentence,
and under darkfall, munitions were gathered
littered with an ancient tongue that was not shared
but hinted at—we learned secret words but not syntax,
the whiskey glasses jumped like startled hares
as fists punctuated each rebel sentence,
and under darkfall, munitions were gathered
in basement cellars and jail evidence lockers,
sent home in shipments of potatoes
sent home in shipments of potatoes
by way of Liverpool and Enniskillen
to fund the long war against the Crown.
I grew up with unspoken stories of freedom
I grew up with unspoken stories of freedom
a tongue loosely translated in a homeland,
a war not my own, a puzzle of the past
leading us inexorably forward.
Write On! with Susie Terence
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