I can play one-eighth of a lick on my mandolin.
At least I used to could.  

Standing in another’s wake too long
robs the heart of song  

First blows shamed my mountain speech
shaped by ridge and mist, no air for difference.  

I hurried, a woman woven in wrong tradition
to calm a burning storm.    

Standing in another’s wake too long
robs the heart of song  

One blue-black night firefly-light
pinwheeled to my heart.  

I breathed bone-deep and pressed
into that whorl, fingerprint of my soul  

and went a seeking along wild-rose slope
for the seam of me, a skin natural and safe.  

I learned to dig, really dig in a world grown hot.
I filled my pockets with heart-shaped stones  

from Honey Creek’s tumbling flow where black bears roam
and found I had me all along.  

Breaking free, listing left, right side upside down,
finding a beat at a time.  

And the rocks, like baby teeth cut on my journey
line my window sills.  

I pick up my mandolin again
and fly into the belly of a song