The mother, a regular,

  working-class gal.

She married again

  with her baggage.

 

The man she married

  took in her with child;

a bastard, from a previous

  marriage.

 

“A son of a bitch,”

  his family would say.

Not to his face,

  but behind a closed door.

 

“Our son, we love him,

  no matter what may.

“No matter (not much!)

  he married a whore.

“What other, besides,

  is our family for?”

 

And so went the life,

  the first years or more.

Excepted, I was,

  the son of a whore.

Well treated, I was,

  if only ignored.

 

Years in confinement,

  proscribed to my room.

So much for the better,

  alone I explored

and found my best friend –

  the Man in the Moon.

 

Together, we met

  Huckleberry Finn!

Tom Sawyer, his pal,

  and Homer’s brave men.

 

Little Men, Little Women,

  and George Orwell;

Sir Walter Scott,

  and O.Henry, too.

 

The books we both read,

  continually grew.

The Man in the Moon

  passed on what he knew –

 

He could befriend

  a bastard, in lieu

of people too close,

  they chose to eschew.

 

The son of another,

  a man unknown.

The son of a mother,

  and the Man in the Moon.

 

I was the son,

  of the Man in the Moon.

 

 

 

©2013, Marvin Loyd Welborn