Next door, in the weedy, tiered rockery
sometimes Steve and I would pretend to picnic—
usually he and Allan played war while I read
one hand blocking glare—
the other popsicle-sticky hand on the page.
If our parents had gone out to their decks
they
wouldn’t see us here
among the pine needles and fiddlehead ferns.
That summer afternoon, their father,
army or navy, more often gone than home—
rocked alone on his deck,
his whole body engulfing a beat-up guitar
like the capital letter C.
He sang—
something about love or peace.
When I moved up from the rockery
to
the step three down from him,
he stayed inside his song--
I’d
be sitting there still
if
my father hadn’t slammed open the door, yelled
godddam girl, git yer ass home,
slapping
the back of my head for bothering the neighbors.
Men hit. That was the rule.
Once when their father finally had leave
instead of a belt or a thin branch
he used a two-by-four,
and Allan—face wet and red—
ran faster than I’d ever seen,
his screams loud enough
to follow me for decades.
I wanted my useless father to wedge himself
between Allan and his father,
wanted his mother Didi to find the words,
wanted the nerve—
but I stayed in the rockery,
smothering fear.
