Monday, May 24, 2021

the bedtime prayer

i remember clearly
my father grabbing the back
of my mother's hair
and pulling it
violently down
with his muscled arm.
she had just come into the room
to read to us
before saying our prayers.
i can still smell
the liquor on his soured breath.
the strange look
in his blue eyes
as he cursed her.
and when i see him now at
93, there is nothing
i can say or do to
change what he did to us.

1 comment:

Di said...

A sad moment in time captured here. Perhaps this is the second stanza of the poem above. . .not my alternative ending of the woman waiting with fury. This woman keeps that bottled up. Seriously, I think this belongs with the one above. The woman with the butter knife stabbing away at the ice in the freezer with all the impotent fury she can muster.