Runaway Boomerang - Revised Version

     The revised version of the workshopped sestina for Dr. Mackie's Poetry Writing course.

Mom was the doctor’s daughter,

Dad was a welder’s son;

But you knew that, and what I’m gonna say:

they fell in love, there was a huge scandal;

but it didn’t matter,  they were each other’s everything.

Happens most places, but just seems distinctly “America.”

Fast-forward to my generation’s America;

I’m the Starr, the Bon Jovi runaway daughter

who embodies everything

that no self-respecting preacher’s son

can look at without feeling scandal.

I feel shame, I say,

at some of the things my parents say –

it’s stupid, but this messed-up America

makes giving any opinion at all a scandal.

Much less the tatted slut daughter

whose past is brought up like the rising of the sun;

my misdeeds are seen as everything.

But Mom and Dad did everything

from the stories I’ve heard ‘em say,

too… Dad’s dad went postal, threw his son

out, even. It was the age of rebellion in America

where if you weren’t a dove daughter,

now, that would cause a scandal…

Now there’s all these Clinton scandals,

I swear, lost my faith in basically everything…

My parents see their daughter’s

life I’ve patched together and say

that maybe there’s hope for America

after all. As if. I take my six-string Gibson

and ride like Billy Dean into the sunset

trying to make sense of my parents’ town’s scandal.

I just don’t understand America,

or how twisted everything becomes

that it’s reported people say.

Guess I am my parents’ daughter…

Now my son is my everything;

I can’t care less what those scandals say.

I may damn America, but I’m still its daughter.