Outside Your Darkened Door

I saw the van pull abruptly to the curb

Across from the church, where I stood at the side door,

Keys in hand

“You want to fuck with me?” he roared, leaping

From the driver’s side, door ajar, as his wife likewise did

He raced her to the passenger side, “I’ll fuck you up,

Just like I did your brother!” And reaching inside he beat

The boy in the backseat, while his wife flailed her arms,

And swallowed her screams

We heard as one, that other day, the screams

That transcended five brick stories, up the echoing shaft

The shock and keening pain, the horror of a mother and

A father, as they beheld

The battered body of their son

A young man, who crawled, as a lark, through the ceiling

Hatch to the top of the freight elevator, to take a ride

And went missing for a weekend

And there were others.

My mother’s wail, beating the car window

While I stood in the front yard, where I’d just told

My stepdad, that Grandpa had died, and she heard

And they left, seconds after they had arrived

And I stood with my sister and brother, and probably

Did not cry

But now

It’s just the children in adjacent yards

And their games.

I hear, and tell myself

They are not being beaten

They are not in despair

They are not dying

It is drama only, they play at suffering

Practicing, though they mustn’t know,

For what awaits them.