In Training

I think he was two the first time he witnessed the truth
but I walked around in a daze, applying foundation to hide the proof
the next time it happened, he must have just turned four
I remember it well because that was the day he called his sister a whore
he was probably six that time he was suspended from school
the day after you did it he assaulted his teacher with a blunt tool
when I finally put you out he may have been eight or nine
I would hear him whimpering in bed at night but by day he'd seem just fine
was he already thirteen when I disciplined him and he hit me back?
I was so in shock that I almost had a heart attack
fifteen years old was the first time he decided to run away from home
he knocked his sister's front teeth out and by the time I returned from work he had gone
he was a seventeen year old dropout when I found out his girlfriend was pregnant with a boy
I wanted to be excited about my first grandchild but there wasn't a single drop of joy
he was just barely legal when she showed up on my doorstep with the baby and all their things
she only could grab what she could carry as she escaped from beneath all of his drunken swings
he was nineteen, I believe, when they closed the casket over her badly bruised and swollen face
you should have been there when the verdict was delivered to see him hang his head in disgrace
all those years he saw you do all those terrible things to me
the one man who should have shown him what love could really be
instead all he learned from you was the power of his own fist
I have cried a thousand tears of regret for all the things he'll miss
he mouthed the words "I'm sorry" to me as they carted him away in the paddy
but I should be the one apologizing because it was me who picked you to be his daddy

© 2004 Niquenya D. Fulbright

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