First Memory
I am three
stealthing in footies
to the fridge.
A cockroach skitters beneath,
but I still crack the door,
extract a green plastic cage
brimmed with strawberries.
I wriggle beneath a padded chair
bowed with my father's thick boned weight
laughing that quake laugh at
I eat and slurp the red sour/sweets,
my body stretched opposite his.
Him sitting, legs propped up—
the length of me, stomach to the earth
head under the ottoman.
My only remembered us, watching TV.
Me, not getting anything.
and I wonder how true.
Have I gleaned this from something other—
a TV show, a movie, a tender wanting dream?
If this is false,
how much else?
I've thought long and hard about this piece over the last few hours and realized that I have an ex-step son (yeah, try and figure that one out) who, if he were inclined to someday write poetry, might pen these same lines. I'm certain there are many other little boys who sadly will relate. Well done.
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