"Does Daddy kiss you like
he kisses me?"
The question
exploded
as my bare toes
wiggled on
red linoleum.
Watching her
stop washing
that dish,
I wished
I coulda shoved
my stupid
stupid words
back
into my
stupid little
lips
the moment
I said them.
I bit my mouth
till it bled
salt
against my
tongue.
The white plate
slipped from
her rubber
fingers.
I watched it fall
like those
instant replays on
football
slowly
deliberately
almost
suspended in time
till its milky face
smashed
the floor
and
shattered.
I heard
her loud steps
towards the
living room
and her slaps
and curses
assailing my
father.
But all I could see
was that
white plate
and
all I could
feel
was like
I
should be
the one
picking up
the pieces
before
someone got
hurt.
Copyright © 2008 Querus Abuttu
2 comments:
This is amazing....I think I have heard these words uttered from children I have seen at CASARC in the past - if not these very words, than others in the same vein.
Carmen
I'm sitting here at my computer wiping tears out of my eyes. How do you create something so evocative and moving out of such a chaotic life? I look at the woman you are now - the way you talk to your kids and the way they talk to you - and it's easy to imagine your childhood like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. It sounds "off" to say I love this poem - but you know what I mean when I do. Amazing - both the poem and the poetess.
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