Different - Alexis Henderson

Watercolor
27" x 21"
 
Assorted 
Charlotte M. Porter
for VMP on Mother’s Day
 
Along narrows of the great divide, future brides sift and sort
coffee beans
 silk cocoons
sherds from tells
balanced easy on their heads in
clay jugs
     gourd bowls
market baskets.
In America, fast gals soon lost that foot-sure grace.
Others set their hair in waves.
Not us. We went on to college.
Our short foot-sore mother, refugee from Antipodes,
insisted we pan gold—
sort words, not seeds,
balance ideas, not ballast, 
use our heads for more than hat stands
or handstands in the grass to show off lacey underpants.