Don’t think it a maybe that the baby is crying
or the discontent whisper is just a former wife sighing.
I march from my home like a soldier to work.
There’s not enough dollars.
I’m living in squalor
but financing a lifestyle where I’m labeled a jerk.
I’ve broken my knuckles
cut open my flesh
while hefting the houses of whores.
I charge them a quarter
for the things that I porter
and return home just as broke and as poor.
But, each day I go back
bruised blue and bruised black
for the compromised pay of a dime.
I hang my head low.
and stare at my toes
then march home like a wandering rhyme.
Something must give
if I’m ever to live;
I just want some more time with my kid.
But, the ex-wife is shouting.
Her payment she’s doubting.
In the interim, she’s flipping her lid
God damn it, I’m trying.
Stop your harping and crying.
The check will arrive on the first.
Are you really here fearing
I’ll fail in my rearing
of the child we conceived and you birthed?
I’m only a man
with sore muscles and hands
doing the best job I can.
Do you know what it takes?
Do know what’s at stake?
Am I to sift gold from sand?
I won’t fail our daughter.
It’s the lessons I taught her–
lessons on how one can thrive.
I taught her to fight.
I taught her to write.
I taught the kid how to survive.
By the time that I’m done,
she could kill with her thumb
and describe it in tear-jerking prose.
She’ll have ethics and morals
and know how to quarrel.
She’ll be as dangerous an Antarctic snow.
She’ll glide like winter wind
with eyes that see sin
and the halos that people conceal.
She’ll be Amazonian inside.
She’ll be a juggernaut bride.
And, she’ll change the world more than the wheel.
–Michael Johnson
Koyotee Laughing 