Playing With-Child

You play a game that no one knows
At first you imagine the life within
How much of it would be you
And how much of it would be him

And then you imagine
How you would relate to a one-year old
the first year
A two-year old
the second
A three-year old
the third year
Four -

Some years you forget to play
Other years like mornings you're not ready to begin
You stay in bed
Trying to keep warm
The memory of the sin

You keep the receipt as a testimony of a boy
that would have been
ten - now,
and of the price that you paid
and wish had been more.

beached secrets

She keeps her secrets like oceans do
buried in her belly
assumes that they will not bloat
believes that in Silence
there is no pain
there is no anger
that shuttles
between the sharpness of his tongue
and the hardening of her heart,
the face of his palm
and the soft of her cheek.

Once -
she thought to leave him
before her son could begin
to remember
but it had become so familiar
that even her son
didn't know any other way to be

And so she relived it
every time she witnessed him
shuttle his anger
from his fists to his wife

And still she kept her silence
with all the will of a martyr

Unaware that her secrets
had long since floated
like bodies
even oceans no longer want to keep