We Might Have Them Say Anything

I have to imagine my families. Not because they were never there:
They were the people one sees every day without knowing
Their stories. Like houses you pass on the drive to anywhere
Because there is only the one way from your bedroom to
The door and from the driveway to et cetera. Because neither
Side, Mama's or Daddy's, was one for telling their stories,

The one about the Orange sits on a pedestal, albeit a slightly
Dusty pedestal. You see my grandfather was an orphan

In a West Kentucky area so poor it might have been the memory
Of being poor. And if anyone has nothing it is an orphan
Of the poor at Christmas. Postulate what doing good would be
In Eighteen-eighty/Eighteen-ninety. Give a child an orange
Who knew nothing but apples. Watch him take a bite, through
Bitter to juice. You will know similar stories and so do I,
But this is the original. Of his first day as a miner I know nothing.

There is coal under everything he was from there on out,
and he became well-to-do, but I only know this one story.