END OF THE LINE

A tribute to Dorothy Allison, an author whose words are so precisely
sincere and honest and crisp that they slice straight to my core.

Dorothy came from a long line
of women who gave themselves
to grease-covered Appalachian men

They were high school girls who
perpetuated their misfortune and passed
it to a new generation every 15 years

They were girls who gave themselves
to boys whose filthy fingers fumbled
with the zippers on their jeans

and the clasps on bras that covered
the fresh buds that they pawed at impatiently
with rough, callus-covered claws

They planted their seeds after three
or four pumps of pleasureless procreation
leaving their offspring to stand at the end

of the ever-increasing line of poor
Appalachian bastards whose family trees
were as mangled and tangled as the gnarled oaks
the Allison clan once climbed