Thinking about all of the women on whose shoulder I stand, and I’m dedicating this to them. 

The Makers of Memorials

by Paulette Beete

They sing. The sing blue songs

their mothers wore.

They sing grief, bone-thick & left-handed.

They sing songs cross oceans, cross sidewalks.

They sing skies sealed shut.

They sing men born wearing walking shoes.

They sing women born palms up.

They sing from mouths without lipstick,

charts without notes, pianos without tunes.

They sing back-door songs & apron-

tied-low songs. They sing.

Unmaking the made into something less

teeth-breaking. They sing

dead crops, dead gods, men

put down, men put out,

dreams put off. Off key, off beat, they sing.

Steady. Loud, Relentless. They sing

instead of, in spite of, next door to. They sing

in clinics, in bedrooms, on corners. They sing.

Women in blue & purple, in thorn tiaras braided

from agains & nevermores & never minds.

Songs of children lost, of savings lost,

pawn tickets lost.

They sing. They sing. They sing

blue songs of our mothers,

holler-songs of our blue mothers.

They sing the slow leak that will drown

the world. They call God home

for the re-making.

(This poem has been previously published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly)