Mary's Eyes
Sometimes
I wish
Mary could open
Her eyes
To see how
Beautiful she
Looks
In the day
She gets
Ready for
Work
In the dark
Catches
At least
2 or 3 buses
To make
A poetry
Reading
The bus
Driver
Drove
Three blocks
Past her
Stop
But Mary
Does not
Complain
She apologies
For not
Making the reading
Earlier
She walks
And bumps
Into people
Politely
She confides
In me that
She does not
Do too well
At readings
But I say
How is the audience
To know the
Difference
Because they don’t
Read Braille
Mary is not
Christ’s Mother
Whose
Picture sits
On my altar
But I shouldn’t
Wonder
Why Mary’s eyes
Are closed
When her vision
Of me
Is so beautiful
Spare Rods
My mother love to fucked us up when we were little children
She was a Southern Baptist who believed in the Bible verse
“Spare the rod and spoil the child”
But you could not tell her that the phrase had nothing to do with the Bible
Or instructional spanking
What she did to us children back then would have gotten her arrested for
Gross child abuse because learning our lessons left too many scars that
Remain long after our small bodies healed
She beat us with a hammer like John Henry
She beat us with a leather strap
She beat us with a wire hanger she had nothing on Joan Crawford
She beat us with her high heel shoes worn by the Supremes
She beat us with a frying pan that she finished cooking dinner with
If she could get her hands on one
She beat us like our father’s mother did with a twig from a nearby magnolia tree
She beat us up with words and threats way before the real beating
She beat us like mothers from her generations beat their children
It’s amazing that we did not turn out fucked up or child beaters ourselves
Our generation renounced the old ways of raising children
We followed the advice of Dr Spock.com by sparing the rod and spoiling the child
This would have repulsed her but too many scars remained long after our small bodies healed