I am five or six years old, and my mother is on her knees.
She is at the county welfare office, and something has gone
wrong. The assistance she'd hoped for isn't going to
happen, and she is at the end of her rope.

She has three children, and whatever our daddy is doing, it
either isn't enough, or it's barely too much, since her
arguments will not move whomever is sitting behind this
desk, looking at the top of her head.

My mother has fallen for love, for mercy, for her children,
to her knees.

But there will be no pity for whatever sorrows have pushed
her to this. To the ears I can't fully remember, her crisis
must have rung of back door blues. How impatient they
must have become for my mother to rise, O careless love, O
easy rider, off their hard luck floor.