Monday, September 10, 2012


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. 

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