Hi Sheila: This one seems to come from real deep ground. Moving.
Makes me ask what is the difference between domestic violence and abuse
As different from what is inflicted on say children in Iraq undoubtedly
every day. Does it make it easier to have and suffer from a defined enemy
rather than that what is suffered through incestuous betrayal.
Obviously I have gone off on a tangent. A characteristic of how I read!
Additionally this one does not engage me so much formally - as much of your
work - but the story, the weight, suspends that interest or is it
requirement?
Thanks for bringing this one up.
Stephen V
> Across from me she wears her eyes
> a calmer blue than blue that speaks
> a clean blade that reflexively
> takes care of everything in the way;
> she talks a quiet trusting talk,
>
> I hear the generations mildew
> by the wayside when she lets the layers
> slip and there before me is a better family
> portrait than before, a child of three
> when I was twenty-one. Now she is
> beautiful and knowing, and I cannot help
> my awe at her escape from branding
> deep into the psyche all the scars of
> either/or mentality, those bedfellows
> we shared, I cannot help the humbling feeling
> that protection I was given and resented
> was protection, nonetheless, that I was loved
> with layers around me, that I was kept safe,
> if not from hurt, at least,
> from being broken to the point
> of never being wanted anymore,
>
> but she is stronger, having been
> taken by surprise, but more than that,
> betrayed, by people who would rather
> brush away the crumbs, the shells,
> the friendly fire itself, and say
> it never happened, excuse
> manchild of forty-some for scarring
> this girl of fourteen who should have after all
> acquired the faculty of forgetting by this time,
>
> but she is sharp as the division between
> health and every tired commitment to degrade,
> for one can always count on degradation
> to be right, if not now, later, when
> amnesia starts the slow progression
> of contagion, and the bonds that make no sense
> between those bludgeoned in common
> far transcend the bonds between oneself
> and one's own flesh,
>
> the child who never knew her youth,
> who had to find it later on, when everything
> around her might be safe, and she could hope
> if not believe, that someone she had found
> might be a father or a safer uncle
> than she had, and people might be taught
> to know the truth and even speak it.
>
>
> sheila e. murphy
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