Fable of the Good Daughter
Once a milkweed, once a daisy,
once I was a pleasant gauzy girl.
I raked hay and weeded the garden.
I had to raise myself,
wake myself, cook and prepare
for the day. I remember wanting
more time, more affection,
expecting to inherit the farm, until
the acres were sold and devoured
by trucks and chemicals.
Once like a flower I wanted to be good.
Once I prayed and obeyed.
But something must always happen.
Say, a betrayal.
Bad birds come to rest.
A weed turns into a stave.
I remember having a family,
now split and sundered
by greed and secrets.
Now devil’s weed shoots past
the declivities.
An old story, the good daughter,
only a child’s fable.
I put on cactus skin
thick as chain mail.
One-speared, sister-less,
I hold up the swords of the agave.
Geraldine Connolly is a native of western Pennsylvania and the author of four full-length collections, mostly recently, Aileron (Terrapin Books, 2018). Read more.
“Fable of the Good Daughter” was first published in Geraldine Connolly’s book Aileron (Terrapin Books, 2018).