Danger threatened!

I knew I had to get away

but there was no place I could go.

A girl of six

can hardly leave

the yard alone.

I stayed.

Instead, I ran into my mind.

I dodged between the messages

of Mother's eyes

and Grandma's sighs -

messages which said

   don't tell the truth

   we cannot bear to hear.

Cowering in the dark recesses

of an attic in my head.

I crept behind the broken furniture

of my unacceptable rage and fear.

Dust of decades,

my forbidden secret,

settled over me as I choked in guilt.

Abandoned and abused,

I sealed the doors

so that no one would know.

Mother

Mother loved me.

She told me little girls

should be very good --

but she loved me.

I never told her

I wasn't always good.

He told me I mustn't tell

and she would have cried

or not believed me.

So I never told her.

She wouldn't want to know.

Mother loved me

so I didn't want to hurt

or disappoint her.

Dying

Sometimes I wished I would be

a happily-ever-after princess

or that I would die.

It bothered me that if I died

you might not care (Mother would).

Faced with dying

I preferred to put the living thoughts

and memories away

deep in my head

where no else could see --

not even me.

I died

inside.

Quiet

No one ever heard us

because you'd wait

until the children were asleep

and Mom was gone.

You'd have a place in the house

where we wouldn't be seen

without warning.

There was no reason to yell.

No one would hear.

It doesn't happen in the

nicer homes.

Respectable people

who go to church

and live in clean neighborhoods

aren't inclined to such

activities.

That's the problem

don't you see.

Not a person I could tell

would want to believe me.

It would ruin the

neighborhood image.

Third-Grade Teacher

Dear Third-Grade Teacher:

You found me daydreaming today.

Usually I work real hard

   finish on time

   read lots of books

   write poems that rhyme

and act like a very good girl.

You scolded me

again

because I was dreaming.

You didn't know that

yesterday

when no one else was home

Daddy made me lie on the couch

with all my clothes off.

He just sat in his big chair

and looked at me

smiling a smile I can't understand

I was ashamed

embarrassed and afraid.

Today I couldn't remember

my "times eights"

and I spent the April afternoon

daydreaming.

You didn't understand.

Alone

A little girl of seven

sits on the front steps

   alone

   pensive.

She carries a burden

so unacceptable and heavy

she cannot let it into

her thoughts

but only feels its weight

insider her unnamed.

The child is not a child

except in stature.

She sighs

in infinite sadness and despair

as she bears her burden

alone.

They taught me

not to hate my parent.

Families must love each other

no matter what.

From time to time

I did so love the attention -

   your touch

   closeness

   privacy.

Maybe, I thought,

this is what families are for.

It was a sad thing

to discover that those

fleeting tender moments

were not parental loving

but a selfish exploitation

   of parental power.

It is sad

and it comes back to me

again and again.

A Dream

I had a dream.

Two small girls were

in a bedroom in the house

next door to Grandma's.

They screamed

   and screamed

and I was terrified,

standing on the porch next door.

My sister came

and told me to forget what I had heard

for there was nothing we could do

to help.

I have come to wonder

what the dream might mean

and if the little girls

were really we.

Uncle Louie

Uncle Louie always gave little girls

a big kiss.

Everybody smiled.

It was a French kiss

and I wondered why it was

so wet

and what a little girl should do.

I looked to Mommy and Daddy and Aunt Bernice.

They hadn't noticed --

   or so it seemed.

I suppose they wouldn't dare believe

   that anything was wrong.

They looked over my head

and smiled at Uncle Louie.

I guess it's okay, I thought.

Maybe every little girl

should like her uncle's kiss.

I looked at Uncle Louie

and I smiled too.