Annette Morgan

“DIRTY LITTLE HALF BREED”

“Mama, what’s a ‘dirty little half-breed’?”
I’d never heard those words before.
And mama got a look on her face,

That same look I see there when daddy
Comes home drinking something dark
From a brown paper bag.

Mama always says, “Sam –
Are you drunk again?”
And he barks out a husky-voiced song,

Grabbing mama around her waist:
Dancing her around the kitchen,
Sorrow and pain ravaging her face.

Scalding tears, liquid love cascading
Down her cheeks burning us –
Cauterizing him and baptizing me.