The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poem Thread, 10/13/07

[BlueIris]

"The Pact"

We played dolls in that house where Father staggered with the
Thanksgiving knife, where Mother wept at
noon into her one ounce of
cottage cheese, praying for the strength not to
kill herself. We kneeled over the
small rubber bodies, you and
I, Trish, gave them baths
carefully, scrubbed their little
orange hands, wrapped them up tight,
said goodnight, never spoke of the
woman like a gaping wound
weeping on the stairs, the man like a stuck
buffalo, stunned, dragging
arrows in his hide. As if we had made a
pact of silence and safety, we kneeled and
dressed those tiny torsos with their elegant
belly-buttons and miniscule holes
high on the buttock to pee through, and all that
darkness in their open mouths, so that I
have not been able to forgive you for giving your
daughter away, letting her go at
eight as if you took Molly Ann or
Tiny Tears and held her head
under the water in the bathinette
until no bubbles rose, or threw her
dark rosy body on the fire that
burned in that house where you and I
barely survived, sister, where we
swore to be protectors.

—Sharon Olds

[BlueIris]

1. Kick.

[BlueIris]

2. Kick.