family history
Learn more about other poetry terms
When their horses came thundering over the plain,
François, did you fear they would take you away?
Did you fear where they’d carry you, fear what they’d do?
Did you long for the sounds of the brown Rio Grande,
The close leaders in my life
Always fail and disappoint
The distant leaders in my life
Do not recognize my existence
The matriarchs of my family
Brittle, stiff, immobile;
Worn out.
With swollen joints
and atrophied flesh
they trembled.