I miss the old days
when I didn’t know better 
when I didn’t need anybody
when Worldy Goods could be packed 
in a back seat in half an hour 
and only old people died
and then, at the end of their life. 

Freedom’s wage weighed 
on a food scale in ounces, 
and I water flowers like 
it means something. 

Go lightly, write, pray. 

We’re all Lula Mae Barnes
with four children from another woman
married at fourteen to a cracker jack
horse doctor whose heart we broke. 

We never had no cause to leave, 
but we did.  And we’d do it again.