Copyright © 2009 Sonya Apollo Reed Littlejohn

Like a hand blown ornament hanging in a stained glass window
Your light is promise that fills me when I close my eyes and dream
Like the wounded bird that heals and takes wing,
Your spirit will soar when the trade winds come through
You sorrow is going to melt and pour out of you as love,
when you have had a chance to thaw.
Like a candle in the night, flickering in the mirror
You reflect what shines inside of me too.
Sister I feel the pain you feel because I have mended the same holes
I am the patchwork quilt of judgement in a small town
Abused and confused lovers practicing transference
Mother trying to be a role model in a man’s world
and father trying to be a mother and a man’s man
Television and latch key kids
teaching me to wear my collars low and my cut-offs high
and to place my moral fiber aside to be primal and wild
Guilty as sin in the arms of truth and reality where there are no excuses
not to shine when you know your own light
So I have no excuse for you, because I have none for me
But I have an ear I can lend,
A tissue that I carry in case either one of us needs it,
And a heart as full of love as it can be,
because I have already melted.