Why am I rushing...
driven even in my sleep?
The sting of time
moves me into a future
Where I’ll become an old crone
bent like an angle iron
precariously toddling around
with a toothless smile
in half-dream mazes of past memories.
Why am I rushing?
Over forty years ago
you broke my thumb
somewhere between my bed
and the porcelain tub,
nicked and scarred
and filled with ice water,
on a cold March day
wind howling as you dragged
me writhing and flailing
and dumped me in
holding me down
with your dark fury.
