I should be home by now

What did I know? I was just a kid lost

in play.  Lost in make believe 

in the high ceilinged rooms

of Christine's house down the street.  

Christine with hair light and pure, 

a free-from-dust glow around

her golden threads and periwinkle eyes.  

Fair and sweet as infant Jesus 

watching from the candle-bright altar.  

Then I remember and throw down 

the dolls and shriek, 

I should be home by now! 

Run girl run, my mother's voice 

shrill in my head loops and loops 

and I see her face disfiguring

before me, her oldest child, 

the one most likely to turn out like her, 

the impulsive girl with unkempt hair,

the one she must subdue with brute force, 

must break her in by lunging and slamming 

and throwing her down

until the girl stops screaming and kicking, 

until she lies still, playing dead, and then 

my mother strips from her nails 

the daughter's dislodged hairs, 

one at a time, the silky brunette strands 

of hair without a halo. 

Into the arena

 To the heart ....was it ever less than treason ... 

to bow and accept 

the end of love or a season? --Robert Frost

On our routine walk across the grass

to his first grade room, my boy lets 

my hand go.

You need not hold my hand anymore, 

he says, abashed.  

My gulp, the noise my heart makes,

all squeeze into a smile.  

And before long,  the boy instructs, 

Don't walk me from the car.  

I can go myself.  

His voice still small but dense with volition, 

a fresh-born will, still damp from its placenta, 

but unshakable

So I swallow and watch with pride--

and it is genuine--

this boy run across the grass,

fast on pup's legs, 

without expertise of any kind, 

and alone, still a stranger 

to the world.

Then one day comes the text:

Do not pick me up from school.  

I will walk home.

Now it all looks clear. 

He is suited up, almost free 

from my love--his oppressor.