Donna Dallas

From The Storybook 

She prostituted while the husband
bled his lungs through his nostrils
at the paint factory fourteen hours a day
and for ten of those fourteen she fucked
then napped
then cooked

She had her baby girl 
white as paper with raven hair
later when there was no heat
nor hot water
they wrapped the child 
tucked her between them
burned their table and chairs in the fireplace
and watched their polar ends pull together 
like yanking two continents to fit the jigsaw

The child became a woman at thirteen
longed for addiction and found it
in the bottle
that bottle
became the suckling for decades 
even through the child’s own pregnancies
two of which plopped dead in the toilet
the third born blue – survived 
sickly and ugly
grew breasts at ten
gave birth to her own at thirteen

Found solace in a needle
and was content leaving her baby
with its alcoholic grandmother
as better the grandmother than her own
wretched hand 

Later grandma
found dead – drowned in the bathtub
the grandchild then five
sent to foster care 
to grow at the mercy of foster pervs
and at sixteen sought her own ruin
at the turnpike truck stop 
in the parking lot
of the twenty-four hour diner
under the help wanted sign
tending to the boys as they cruised by
hungry and raring