Who am I?

'Landed here' in 1928.  Mother was a nurse (and card dealer), Father a doorman and Navy dietician.  The three, and, her older brother.  A calamitous marriage ended, and when she was 3, her brother 4......they were found traveling by train (alone) to Arkansas to live with their paternal grandmother, owner of a general store there.

Four years later, daddy came back, fetched the kids... took 'em back to Missouri to live with their mother...  She (the 'who am I') was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend. She told her brother, he told the remainder of the family.. accuser was arrested, spent one day in jail... released.. murdered four days later, presumed by her uncles.

She became mute for nearly five years.  "I believed my voice had killed him. I killed that man because I told his name, so I thought I'd never speak again because my voice would kill anyone."

Her, her brother, back to Grandma shortly thereafter.  A teacher, and friend of the family, finally coaxed her into "You do not love poetry, not until you speak it."

Their trek across America continued at age 14 and 15, back to mother, this time living in Oakland, CA.  By age 16, she achieved her dream job in San Fran as a Streetcar Conductor, the very first Black female street conductor. She would graduate High School at 17, and birth a son three weeks later.