Father’s Mothers

By Donna Hilbert

The only man
who’d seen her naked
was Guy, until her breast
blackened, clenched to a fist
and she unbuttoned her dress
to show the doctor.
Dead by forty,
Willie didn’t live
to know her oldest boys
would die
in separate icy crashes
off Red River Bridge.
And Guy, helpless
to raise six kids,
would marry Grace,
the Tattooed Lady
from the traveling circus.