POEM - Same Old Threat

I'm going back to the gypsies

Sent there for misbehavior

It’s my mother’s favorite threat

Thinks it is so clever

It is only what she heard

When she misbehaved

When her mother couldn’t handle her

It must have scared her good

But it wasn’t the fear of being sent off

It was the surety that she would not

That it was just an idle threat

Now even more idle

After all the years

Her heart's not in it.

I throw another mud clump

Against the backyard wall

Maybe break another dish

All to hear her drone out

Her dejected, handed-down threat

Of being sent to the gypsies,

Often she would say it

In the very same breath

As she would brag to her friends

I think it's the gypsy blood

that keeps moving us around so much!

Wanderlust,

Waking hours haunted

By trinket filled wagons.

I yell back

I'll send you to the gypsies!

Old Woman I will!

Just try me!

Always makes her smile,

Makes eyes glaze over

With far off looks,

Then she starts singing

The song she always does

The one she thinks no one can hear

The gypsies are coming to town,

gather all your children round,

gather all your children round,

the gypsies are in the town . . .