I Use To Dreamed I Was A Bird by tex norman

“I worked myself half plumb
to death,” granny said.
“After mama died and I was
drug up hard
by my sister Dot, who seemed more like
Satan’s Sister than mine. Back then
washing clothes involved
a galvanized washboard,
a galvanized tub,
a big ole cake of lye soap
and a whole lot of me. Seemed to me then
like there was no end to the clothes
needing to be scrubbed. Dot,
my merciless sister, didn’t have
a break schedule or
a quitting time schedule.
Quitting time was when you were done,
which was never.
I remember my arms ached
like an old maid’s heart at a wedding.
I remember I’d lay my arms over my head
each night and cried myself to sleep,
and in my slumbering
I dreamed I was a bird.
You just imagine birds can fly
and if you can fly then by golly
you can escape anything and birds are never
confined to drudgery
or the caustic contact of the lye,
or the constant contact with lies.