Charlotte

January 12, 1928
a tornado
lit down on Alabama.
Swaddled in a blanket
and held tight,
she could not
be stilled.
Her mother had
no idea
the range of emotion
she held
in her arms.

Charlotte blew in
at a wind velocity
that could’a blown a tunnel
clean through the mountain
that rested above Huntsville.
Monte Sano would see her passage
many times over.

She was a child
intended for love,
but there was a
cold torrent waiting to pass
that got frozen in place.

The mother
was not one
for cozying up
to this child.
Charlotte’s face shown lovely
in too many frames.
A mother’s love
turned to envy.

Her hometown had one Main Street
and one main photographer
whose focus was beauty.
Charlotte sat pretty for him
and her smile
beguiled the population
of that little town.

Her family mistook
the invitations to homes
of church families
as the favoring of this girl
over her sisters
when really it was
the lecherous men
who preyed over children
and counted on her
coming to play
with their daughters.
What a fitting ploy.
They would stroke her hair,
handily forcing their affections.

Charlotte grew tired
of the attention.
She began to twist
and unfurl,
looking for a place
to let her wings glide.

Her mother’s eyes
fell upon
wing cutters
and she snipped away
at anything
that wouldn’t lay still.
Before her mother
would finish
there would be pock marks
all over dear Charlotte
whose only dream
was to sing
like the ladies
she heard on her radio
late at night.
The green eyed mother stood
outside Charlotte’s door
waiting for the sound
and the moment she could
call out
and shut it down.
Charotte’s voice would not be heard;
her song and the grief
she carried to her grave.
There was no one to listen.

Before her eyes would close
she would say to her daughter,
“I only wanted
to sing my song.
Nothing more.”