The Men of my Family

[bena]

Thanks all for the crits, greatly appreciated. I completely missed the double reference with "peckers". It's only shortened because I have woodpeckers three times: most likely I should just nix one of them. Same goes for the myriad of colons and semicolons. I liked the vernacular line as a sort of western "he don't come round these parts no more", but if it's distracting I'll think of replacing it or using quotes.

It's only distracting because it comes out of nowhere---there's no other vernacular in the poem. I think quotes would solve the problem excellently!

bena