"Recriminations? Spilled milk?
_____I'm not my moms, yo."
So states young Steven Ho,
_____half Mayflower, half San Francisco.
His father's got custody now.
_____The boy's enrolled
At Everett -- he wants to go
_____to Mission High,
to defiantly slap wheat paste
_____murals decrying true crime
where posting bills
_____(and soliciting for tupenny)
remain verboten -- In the Tenderloin.
_____He can be forgiven: He's young.
His mom was that lucky Southie
_____broad -- smart, gutter-burned.
A Beantown sweet
_____Who'd no intention to pain the man
who loved her. Loved her as Californians try to love --
_____without judgment, and with enough room
to let her breathe. It made her lie.
_____I hope she knows he did so with an eye
to survival.
_____Young Steven Ho, born at General on Potrero
to a Mom the 'Sco subsequently exiled
_____is wise enough to try to find her first
only in his Bic on Papermate tweak
_____sketches: the sachem's wampum at gym class.
He's young enough to make us
_____wish him all the hurt he deserves
when instead of sitting in bilge to achieve Hong Kong
_____he backtracks, crosses Indian lands, to find his mom.
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