Ancestor Song
Thick wool sweaters often covered the
crooked trail of her left collar bone.
The one that never healed straight.
It sang her story anyway,
the way the Appalachian winds,
rains and rivers do.
It sang the story of a yellow field
consecrated in end-of-day, golden light.
The field she was dragged through by her golden hair.
It told the story of the back of a rifle
That was turned on her, when he realized
the chamber wasn’t loaded.
He smelled of whiskey,
and claimed to not remember doing it.
Claimed to never have noticed the
crooked road of her collar bone
that shouted at him
with winding, sing-songy curses,
the way the Appalachian winds, rains and rivers did.
Until the day the curving roads swallowed him up.
And my great-grandmother,
8 months pregnant at the time,
packed her bags of scarves and wool sweaters,
and left.
By Kristina Sargent
Biography:
Biography
Kristina Marcelli Sargent works as a mental health therapist is the rural town of Leadville, Colorado. She writes and paints in her free time as well as spending time in the mountains. She has an undergraduate degree in fine arts and an associates degree in creative writing from Thomas More University in Kentucky. She obtained her Master of Social Work degree in Cincinnati, Ohio.