Dandelion Roots

She has a tumbledown deck, a creaky rocker. Dandelion seeds carry memories from one neglected garden patch to another. She’s not old, but her wine has mulled, the sun has scoured her face into a tracery of twilit paths. There were children once. They play now upon her mind as fairies would each one lightly sprinkled with a moonshine made in a tin shelter deep in the rickety scrub of backwoods memories. The law took them, and the grinding years brewed more lonely coffee, while cans filled with cigarette butts. No-good lovers still practice their shoddy dance steps in her housecoat pockets while lost children braid her greying hair. Few things were fair in her life, few choice well made, most withered, yet in the soft evenings, she still waters unkempt floral corners where hope hangs on, she still pulls together enough threads of herself to brave the shadows that creep into the spooked cubbyholes of her ramshackle nights.