Forsaken inheritance

She never used to write so well,
but her strokes were precise and felt, in pain.
Rubbed her kitty like a bag on sale,
to furious suitors that never rung, her bell.

Indeed she was one whose fate you could tell,
gave me hope that indeed I could sell,
twenty short verses, for the price of ale
to abandoned groupies, now crowded, in a cell.

Mama didn't know how hard we fell,
lost opportunities now wrapped instead,
on borrowed paper that rusts, in beds,
of jilted lovers, whose fate we dealt.

We knew she was a keeper from files we read,
and virtual comments she made, from jail,
while serving a sentence to redeem, her claim,
on a forsaken inheritance, now bought in shame. 

* * *
Rabbit Hole, July 2019