Serengeti Crow
Great Grandma
was legendary.
Legend was
she was
one half black,
one half Cherokee
and full on crazy.
At least,
that's what daddy said.
He said
she asked quietly at first
“quit the racquet.”
Then, yelled. “Stop banging on the piano.”
They didn't take her seriously.
From then on,
they always would
as she drove her slate gray point home.
When the family went cotton picking
she went out back
grabbed an axe
split the piano into two-es.
When I am torn,
I rest on what my daddy said.
I carry her story by heart
somewhere not far from here
I hear the crows
in her black hair
climbing braided ropes,
feel the burn
of the Serengeti setting
in the amber of her eyes
held by cheek boned cliffs.
She cemented her story
with one solitary act.
A wounded healer
hammering her stance.
Ruined music
splitting the air.
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