Fishbone and Blues

Books by Dorothy Rice

Pennies to Dollars / The Seventeenth Child

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Fishbone & Blues

By Dorothy Marie Rice

I should have told her

about the blues in our blood

that she was not alone

in feeling like a fishbone

lodged in her throat

why she snuggled in bed

at odd hours, shunning

daylight craving sweets

and bad boys

why she laughed as readily

as she cried

and the pent up anger

pounding in her chest

that made her want to

smack somebody, anybody!

why getting started

and finishing up

filled her with

much foreboding

but I kept silent

about all this

hoping she

could avoid the curse

because she was “so pretty.”

Ó 2005 Dorothy Marie Rice

* * * * *

Dorothy Marie Rice is a literature and history resource teacher at the Arts and Humanities Center in Richmond, Virginia. She presents her original poetry in local venues. She was a winner of the first Furious Flower Poetry Prize in 1995. She has co-authored two books: Pennies to Dollars with her cousin Muriel Miller Branch, and The Seventeenth Child with her mother Lucille Mabel Walthall Payne. Both books are currently out of print. In addition to creating poems, she makes paper jewelry and papier-mâché bowls.

updated 3 April 2008