To Be a Burning Woman, for my Grandma Mimi and Melissa
Etheridge.
[LAUGHTER]
You were likely my age on a bar stool in Que Sera, Long Beach,
nursing a beer, gazing at your girls' marine cut.
Friends circle the stage to wait for Melissa before her fame.
They're on their feet whistling in the dark.
The joy, the guts.
On your 71st birthday we're at her concert in Milwaukee.
Melissa walks on stage in a white hat, a red feather tucked
into the band.
Her gun smoke sound slips through me like grease.
Oh, I feel the need to scream, to blush.
To be a burning woman.
[APPLAUSE]