Poetry Corner
by Kathie Bird
| Family Secret You look to me for help I listen to your roundabout words The meaning swirls in belching pools of heated pain beneath That stutters and spurts and chokes your truth I don't need the words I know the image you carry Drawn from a daughter's message unfurled in scenes of hide and shriek With her final sombre facts that twist your being. What is this man you live beside Has he come to rerun your horrors of youth Trust betrayed be-damned in sly force spurning hate-guilt silent walls awaiting worse He, the father - you, the mother of your fear Now it's up to you Caught between your present and your past Your children, your home, precarious peace are the stakes In accepting the facts You look to me for help To somehow direct your pain If he disappeared it's not the end its deep in your child's dream within the walls Waiting to leap again As it lives in you and in children unborn It feeds within a family Unless you can stand bare and bold dare to bleed again to show its face real and mean And scare it all away copyright 1988, Kathie Bird |
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