In Remembrance of Louis May Alcott
We sit here to hide from the heat:
Mom, my older sis, my younger sis, and me.
All thanks to my grandma's air conditioning,
We stay in this bedroom.
And in here I feel something new;
It has been a while being alone
With just the gals.
I can almost feel our bloodline
Flow right through us --
Of course the men are part of our ancestry,
But for now, it is us ladies
Hiding from the sky's 95 degrees.
The oldest pins up Mom's hair
And dries it for the last time;
She must have her hair curled just right
Before visiting a wedding tonight.
My youngest is in another corner,
Holding my little cousin by the arms,
Her giggles ringing through my ears
As she learns how walk on her feet.
I lay on a bed, novel in hand,
but too distracted to read --
I keep seeing another story around me:
There is Margaret,
Brushing the soft ends of Marmee's curls;
She has always been the gardener,
Pruning this crooked branch of our family tree.
And there goes Amy,
Still playing with the baby.
It's about time that we find ourselves
In another argument --
She is being too rough on her arms, after all --
Always close to grabbing each other throats
About another thing of flurry.
And with me, I can stand as Beth and Josephine.
You may catch me with a book under the palm leaves,
But don't try your luck placing me
Among a wild assembly.
Yes, here under the breeze of Grandma’s AC,
In the company of Mom and Sisters 1, 2, and 3,
I only see the beloved March family
Of the 1860s;
Over a hundred years later,
In a twisted story of hand-me-down genes,
Love, and root of being,
Us as Little Women, that is we.
This poem is about:
My family