My first sestina

She Loves the Beach



It was an early morning in 1997,
My car was packed with all I owned and
My little girl stared out, we headed East.
It was time to leave home in the mountains,
I took her from her home at three-years old.
She did not know. I did what I had to do.

I don’t remember the weather, but I do
know the year. It was nineteen ninety-seven.
I was twenty-one; she was three-years old.
I drove a 1994 black Tracer and
I left a man in the Blue Ridge Mountains,
I kept driving on Interstate 40 towards the East.

A January day, I was traveling East.
The highways were singing to me, but I do
Remember her cries through the mountains,
She hated me for leaving in 1997
Her daddy was not coming with us, and
I was not staying with him until I was old.

Because I loved her and I was twenty-one years old
I left angry fists, words, I kept driving East.
I was his trophy, he was not mine, and
his mantle crumbled, what did I do?
I took my daughter, I left. 1997.
Highway hours passed, so did the mountains.

The land was flattening, no blue mountains.
My birthday had passed, but I was not old.
My daughter turned four in 1997
I had no job waiting for me in the East.
I would survive and provide for my child, and do
What any true parent would do. Find work. And

Provide a happy life, no angry fists, and
A life over the peak of Virginia Mountains.
I kept driving, while taking deep breaths, to do
A life change was a dream at twenty-one years old,
But not for a three year old, seated, driving East
But I left our nightmare in 1997.

When we arrived, what did I do?
I placed her toes in the eastern sand and
her tears were left in the Blue Ridge Mountains.