Free At Last Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

Free of shackles, free at last!
Gone to ashes, dust to dust.
Will you give me, God, the time
to catch up with my distant past?
No more begging, no more stealing,
independence day has come.
She remembers all his rulings.
all his cautions, turned to slaps,
cruel beatings of their children,
an irony he never saw.
So she goes through others' silver
as she empties all the stores,
a merry circus, she is in it
and has become their biggest clown.
The combination is intriguing,
senility and stark defiance.
The last shirt doesn't have a pocket
hers will be checkered for the past.