National Poetry Month- breakfast poem in five minutes with a timer

My Aunt Lee who lived in Florida
with the real name of Leoda
would marinade her steak
for days in some odd concoction of 7-up and spices
and we would grill them in that tiny yard of the trailer park
in Jacksonville, Florida
near the rough beach
we would drive piled in her jalopy
with brown limbs of children everywhere
heads out windows like dogs eating air
and I didn't know that the dirty public beach wasn't paradise
and I didn't know anything about broken families
and my body was strong against the tide
and I was 14 years old and cruel against the world
and it was the last summer I would ever see her
before she wasn't a part of the family anymore
just like that
like the rinsing of the sand off red skin at silver showers in the sun



-amy turn sharp
4/7/10
five minute poem over breakfast of black coffee and toast with thick butter slabs