Origin Story

Butte, Montana 1923

Like corks in a mellow river
her ringlets, finger-trained,
bobbled on her shoulders
as her partner stepped her backward
when the polka quickened
at the parish social.

She was the local beauty,
chosen by her hometown
Butte’s very Mary Pickford.

Who might have picked a homegrown boy
with grime in his cracked knuckles
from loading copper ore,
but, having pleased a sales trainee
en route to Salt Lake City,
she married up and outward,
which counted as success.

They found they could not fit
each other’s aspirations.
He sought a polished hostess
and wily strategist
to scale the corporate ladder;
she, tongue-tied with strangers
and overdressed at parties,
refused to learn the rules
but pined for younger siblings,
workers left to flounder
once the mines were shuttered.

Those unvoiced frustrations
boiled beneath the acrid
household disagreements
(money, always money)
that scoured my parents’ union
and left no scope for laughter.

I wish they had divorced
or, better, not had children.

And from that mésalliance
with a fault line down its center
I drew my DNA
and still retrace its burden.