Fortune’s Refugees (poem)
Fortune’s Refugees
Whether this is the saga
[This Is the Saga, the announcer announces,
when the solo flute ends and the violins swell]
of three generations, in quest of freedom, unless
pioneers, then the Civil War factors
or the title asks for a sensitive treatment, of WWII…writer?
This is the Saga of Three Generations
Mother Fortune arrives, she adopts the name
Yes, call them the Fortunes, the novel begins
to have concept. “What good is your church, your God?”
shouts the son
The concertina that belonged to his grandfather
packed at the bottom of a trunk, transported
through shipwreck and combat, hoarded unhockable
through sixteen-hour shifts, punching of shoe leather
and the Blizzard of ‘88
the sad death in childbirth and the tenement fire
“Don’t I owe it to Hezekiah? No! I’ll never be a musician.
I’m going to be an actor, Ma!
Don’t you understand? This is not your world! It’s mine!”
The Jazz Age rises and a daughter wants to marry an outsider
I forbid you
“Well, fine,” she tells her father. “I won’t. We’ll raise our child
our own way. You don’t want me under your roof? I’ll go—
I’m going now.”
“No, wait!”
Hard times and crimes, an empire grows trafficking sin
Twenty years and war is won, now a plague stalks the young, yet
When she raises her eyes, factory girl, prostitute
volunteer nurse at last, reformed and refined
“Papa, do you know me? It’s your Anne-Marie.”
He burbles. Forgive me.
The end. You have been listening to
FORTUNE’S REFUGEES
Fortune’s Refugees
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(2019, Stephanie Foster)