To Dottie and the Girls Who Went Away
Pruning your family tree
they told her
was the right thing to do
the moral thing to do.
Good girls gone bad
Bad girls gone badder.
You owe it to your child
to your family
to yourself
to cleanse yourself
to redeem yourself.
Don't give your child a name.
The tree will never know.
Prune your family tree
they told her
was the right thing to do
the moral thing to do.
Let your child
be grafted on to a stranger's family tree.
Let her (and you) complete their family.
A small but sturdy leaf.
The tree will celebrate her.
Prune your family tree
they told her
was the right thing to do
the moral thing to do.
Amputate the twig.
Rip off the leaf.
Burn them and
cast the ashes to the wind.
It is but a small surgery
you will soon forget.
You will flourish, grow.
Become new and fresh.
Your child, grafted to another
will grow into graceful a willow
or a mighty oak
This is what they told her.
And she believed it.
Or tried to
as she signed the papers.
She did not grow
did not flourish.
Pruning a tree
creates a stronger,
more bountiful tree
she thought later.
A family tree, though,
is not planted in the ground
bound by the laws of
agriculture
or landscape architecture.
The family tree is not
a matter of aesthetics
or health
to be subjected to the pruning hook
to shape or make spaces
for the sun to shine on
to cut out the damaged, dying and dead.
My child was not damaged.
She was not dead.
Pruning my family tree was
not the right thing to do
not the moral thing to do
she said.
The family tree
tracks the past
tracks the future.
It cannot be manipulated
for rightness or morality.
They lied.
The tree remembers my child.
The tree mourns.
About the author:
Marley Greiner began her “career” as a poet in Columbus, Ohio, where she was active in the lively poetry scene, giving dozens of readings and poetry performances. She won numerous competitions for Ohio Poetry Day (and was occasionally a sponsor and judge), and 1 year served as poetry coordinator for the 3-day Columbus Arts Festival She is the founder of the poetry band Cows in Flight. In the 1980s with poet Elizabeth Ann James, she co-wrote a monthly poetry column for the Columbus Free Press. After a 20+ year hiatus–”nothing more to say”– she’s back with a lot to say. Greiner’s work has appeared in Pig Iron Press, Pudding, the feminist anthology I Name Myself Daughter and It is Good, and most recently Texas Bards 2024, Dawn Horizons, and Bards Across the Pond anthologies. Most of her previous work and the publications they appeared in were lost in a cross-country move so she’s starting over. Greiner is the co-founder of Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization (the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the US—bastards.org), blogger, historian, and troublemaker. She holds a BA in English and Political Science from Malone University and an MA and is ABD in American History from the Ohio State University, specializing in localized Progressive Era sex work and organized crime.
Part of our Summer 2025 Issue. New stories, poems, and essays now through August 31, 2025.
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