God, et altera

At the age of 12 I began to be visited by the accountant, while I was sleeping in the room with my two sisters. I neither knew nor understood what was going on, I only knew I wanted it to stop. When I went to the priest to ask him what to do to make him stop, he said I must be doing something to bring it on. I decided this was an unfair judgment by God et altera, and decided also I wanted no part of God. Mornings were particularly difficult, because I showered in the morning and it was forbidden in the house of the accountant to lock the bathroom door, allegedly to prevent injury to the children. I got up earlier and earlier every day, at 12, to shower in peace, but the door to the bathroom would be slammed, the lock turned, and I would tremble in my twelve-year-old body, while the shower ran...


grace

Isn't it amazing when walking wounded
alienated third class...
each of us survivors of a hurt

that meant to kill and maim though scars
remain which make it hard to breathe
on humid nights or when the air

is anorexic, isn't it, I say, amazing
that we thrive, that despite moments
when the breath is stopped by inner

torrents of burnt anguish, a taste of acrid
bile, a sudden wrenching of the lower
intestine, that we can sing an aria,

laugh loudly,
love and love
and love?

It was so hard to live at twelve
immured in prejudice and fear
to shower in a house where lust

was rampant in middle-aged
step-papis, nightmares with knives
and breathless races

through dark alleys covered
in slimyleeringystepdaddylovesyou eyes,
(oh miserere nobis, dona nobis pacem)

Isn't it amazing that nightmares
may be conquered, that hatred may become
indifference, that if you live enough,

someday indifference
may become forgiveness?
I'm working on forgiveness, forgetting

nightmares, the sun outside is pouring
daffodil rays on sycamores and maples
and that so patient worm walking a crooked line

upon my rotting deck
and oh the wind is sweet
upon my back, miniature

tiger lilies have begun
to peer above the frosted earth,
isn't it, can't you see how much it is,

amazing?