She was four, he was one, it
was raining, we had colds,
we had been in the apartment
two weeks straight,
I grabbed her to keep her
from shoving him over on his
face, again, and when I had
her wrist
in my grasp I compressed it,
fiercely, for a couple
of seconds, to make an
impression on her,
to hurt her, our beloved
firstborn, I even almost
savored the stinging
sensation of the squeezing, the
expression, into her, of my
anger,
"Never, never again," the righteous
chant accompanying the clasp.
It happened very
fast—grab, crush, crush,
crush, release—and at the
first extra
force, she swung her head, as
if checking
who this was, and looked at
me,
and saw me—yes, this was her
mom,
her mom was doing this. Her
dark,
deeply open eyes took me
in, she knew me, in the shock
of the moment
she learned me. This was her
mother, one of the
two whom she most loved, the
two
who loved her most, near the
source of love
was this.