On Getting Free

The street curbs stacked into a stairway

to ascend above the roads

paved by martyr mothers

fearful to move away from tradition

and the husband’s family farm.

Those fears are borrowed

from the last four generations

and the loan is past due.

The family will be disappointed

you won’t take on their debt, 

but see them as landscapes

for your benefit.

The ariel view shows

their missing excitement

is alive in the expansiveness

that’s too big

for the best they can imagine.