Domestics
Every time I heard my mother cry
I would come barreling down the stairs
to square up to my father,
both of us fuming on the edge of a fight.
As a child when you have yet to experience
the intricate petty traumas of a relationship.
The world is clear-cut, not a puzzle of pitfalls
where you must grapple with the right light
the way you would pull up a kitten
from a well.
Mother was no kitten, and a boy cannot save
a woman who plays cat and mouse games.
Father was a good man made weak,
worn out by doing the best he could.
Their battles were a joust,
their fighting had rules of engagement.
Boys and their mothers also have rules,
they agree to die for each other,
even when there is so very little to die for.
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