The Giraffe Blog – Poems by Virgenal Owens

Years go by, we grow apart. 
Grandmother, matriarch, always made it stick. 
Until she passed. 

Black families never really had a backup plan. 
There was never a Plan B, C, or D, it seems. 

Dissolution, desolation. 
Thanksgiving. Jingle Bells. Ball drops. 

I forgot what cousins look like,
What aunties brought for dinner,
What uncles drank at midnight.
Forgot mother’s smile. 
Can’t remember dad’s best joke.

I’m trying to remember,
But it’s hard to jog a memory
You never thought you’d lose.


~Written by: Virgenal Owens