Now realizing back in my earliest childhood days and teens
an inexorable coat of arms draped over my extended family
it being a unique container reeking of whiskey but filled by my kin
supplanting a ship in one of those impossible bottles
‘Irish milk’ it was jokingly yet ruefully called by the Eire choir
other members of my jumbled heritage not so quip literate
the males never in need of an occasion to disappear another sixer
the female DNA in my lineage being reluctant collaborators
This excess liquid cowardice brutally poisoned all in reach
awakening demons requiring just such nutrients for release
the imbibers briefly relieved of their day-to-day burdens
accepting tit-for-tat as a grotesquely even proposition
Still, mine was mostly a family of decent beating hearts
yet busted up and dwarfed lives so very raw and real
with dreams drawn but primarily self-quartered
and loves mutilated despite appearances peripherally intact
Our poverty of mind and wallet an incognito fait accompli
but it gathers no leavening to spit at oneself
true, nobody ever once asked as to our two cents
likely because we showed no means of affording it
Generations later, by tilting at the malignancies
and changes empowered by will and through foresight
we carry a lessened assortment of scarlet letters
with reddened scars now hidden under middle class costumes
Yes, he successfully conquered water