The Black Sheep Diaries Part II

Where is Norman Rockwell’s American Dream?
O yes show me your scenes
Of beautiful tables heaped with food
Welcoming fires
Did you think the truth would never come out
Those widows, single-welfare moms, and strays
Those fate-humbled Black Sheep
With their noses pressed
Against the glass
Where’s their welcome
Slowly they’ve been excommunicated
First their cards ignored
Then phone calls
Blood relatives using
Hypocritical shovels
To throw dirt on them
Before they are even dead
Did you think we Black Sheep
Wouldn’t find the stepchildren
Hidden in the shack
In the backyard
Where’s their dinner
Where’s their warm bed
At night
What was their crime
O but this was legal in America
60 years ago
Or so I’ve been told
O yes in a so-called
Perfect American Family
I’m the Rake scratching
The surface
Past the lies of the American Dream
Free these kids from their shackles
Let Truth and Freedom
Scream

Hope Vigil-Alvarez is a writer from San Diego, CA. Publishing credits include "This Morning", "Moonchild" in the Millenium Poets and Poems Birdsong Anthology 2016 (Vol. 1), and "Unshattered" in the #NotMyPresident Anthology Read other articles by Hope.