Family,
this connection of flesh and blood
is one long muscle of lineage and kin.
What happens when a shock
strikes,
rips like sciatic lightning,
cuts sudden and deep?
No one muscle moves
alone...
in any movement.
Does muscle tear,
form scars,
enlarge,
emerge stronger?
Do hamstrings tighten
to maintain center,
to stand
upright?
Will the muscle belly
pull in
and bind back upon itself,
forever changed
unable to recoil, to rest?
... remain open,
gashed and bloody?
Will it leave the tribe
limping?
Blood ties
do not always
mean smooth flow,
cannot always
connect
family.
Sometimes family
does not mean
family.
This poem is written for We Write Poems poetry prompt #117, "what words mean" on August 2, 2012, at http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/prompt-117-its-post-your-poems-day/
The prompt asks: Write a poem that begins and ends with a one word line, that word being the same at both beginning and ending. Yet allow the body of the poem to create that shift in meaning for that one word.
