and spat it out,
the bitter taste chasing
my tongue from the comfort
of my mouth.
Why would she coat her throat
with something that could only
strip her taste buds bare?
NIGHTMARE
Dad gone for good,
we moved in with Mom’s cousin
and her grown boys, for a while.
In the bedroom across the hall,
the boys often entertained themselves
with needles of joy juice.
That’s what they called it
between bouts of laughter,
heads lolling back, eyes the color
of a blood moon.
Sometimes, they’d moan
and Carol would rock me on her lap
while Mom prayed over us
pleading for protection.
One day, Mom decided
prayer was not enough.
She confronted—
let’s call her Sadie—
to lodge a complaint
about her boys shooting heroin
right where we could see.
A fight broke out between them,
and Sadie cracked Mom in the head
with an iron.
Blood gushed everywhere,
to the tune of me screaming.
But it was all delirium, wasn’t it?
Some bad dream born of
indigestion? That had to be it.
I was certain right up until
the night, years later,
when Mom took my index finger
and placed it on her scar.
“The next day,” she said,
“we moved away.”
ON OUR OWN
1.
No one warned me
the world was full of
ordinary hazards
like closets with locks and keys.
I learned this lesson when Mom,
without her cousin to fall back on,
left us daily with
a succession of strangers
while she went to work.
One woman was indisputably
a demon in disguise,
full lips grinning slyly
as Mom waved goodbye
each morning.
“See you after work,”
Mom said that first day.
The second she was out of sight,
Demon’s smile melted like
hot paraffin.
Snatching up Carol and me,
she dragged us, kicking, to
the bedroom closet.
She shoved us in, quick as the witch
in “Hansel and Gretel,”
jamming the key in the lock.
“You tattle to your mom about this,”
she growled, “I’ll come back
and beat the black off ya.”
Deadly threat delivered,
she left for the day.
2.
I screamed, my puny fists pounding the door
till Carol caught me by the wrists
and held me still. “Shhhh,” she whispered.
“It’s okay. I’m right here.”
Once my breathing slowed,
Carol left me long enough
to navigate the darkness.
She found suitcases to sit on.
Sniffling, I perched on the edge of one
and pressed my fingertips together.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
I repeated those words
like a chant.
I was three years old.
It was the only prayer I knew.
3.
I should’ve prayed not to pee my pants.
The cramped and stuffy space
made me wheeze.
Brass fittings on the Samsonite case
dug into the flesh
behind my knees.
But worse yet,
the occasional roach
skittered along my calf,
up a thigh,
and I would scratch
and stomp and cry
till it was off.
No one was around
to wipe away my tears,
except my sister,
who had tears of her own.
4.
Day after day,
the routine remained unchanged.
Demon locked us up in the morning,
then let us out and fed us just before
Mom came home from work.
Despite the witch’s threat,
the horrors of that first day,
but Mom waved her away
with a warning
to quit lying.
5.
One afternoon,
when I thought
we’d live in the dark forever,
I heard what sounded like
a familiar voice.
“Girls?”
“Mommy?” I screamed,
afraid to believe.
But the lock turned,
the door flew open,
and I leaped into Mom’s arms.
“My God!” she said.
“How long have you two
been in here?”
“All day,” snapped Carol,
keeping her distance.
“I told you!
I told you,
but you called me a liar!”
6.
The slap of words sent
Mom to her knees, please
written all over her face.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered,
reaching for my sister.
Carol backed away.
“Jesus,” Mom said. “What did
this woman do? Are you all right?”
Where to begin?
There were too many answers.
Even my big sister
lacked the language needed
for them all,
so we chose silence.
Besides, it was impossible to guess
which atrocities
Mom was
prepared to hear.
7.
Thankfully, my sister and I
never laid eyes on that
bit of walking evil again. Still,
Demon lived inside us for years,
embedded in our twin fears
of the dark.
MISSING DADDY
I missed the cushion
of Daddy’s soft voice,
the sleepy lullaby
of his violin
as his bow
gently kissed
each string.
Even Mom’s
occasional hugs
were not as warm
an embrace.
FAMILY
Uncle Abe.
Aunt Esther.
Uncle Willis.
Aunt Lorraine.
Uncle Gene.
Aunt Edna.
On the face of it,
we had family aplenty.
One question,
never answered:
Where were they all
when Carol and I
were small?
A PROPER INTRODUCTION
Sorry.
I neglected to
paint you a picture of myself.
I began as a baby
with chunky cheeks
that invited pinching,
then, by five or six,
transformed into a tallish
brown twig of a girl,
cursed with an enormous nose
(in my rough estimation)
and a small face
swallowed up by
oversized eyeglasses,
like my sister’s,
with lenses so thick
they slowed the speed of light.
I was quite sure “pretty”
was not
in my future.
BINGE
Babysitters came and went,
with Mom pulling in
all the overtime
she could manage,
taking the edge off of each day
with a shot, or two, or three
of blackberry brandy.
Sometimes, she’d disappear
in an alcoholic haze
and be missing for days,
leaving no one at home
to watch over us.
Carol, nearly five years my senior,
would play little mama,
mixing raw oats and buttermilk
for us to eat—
anything to fill our bellies.
Someone must have noticed us alone
and telephoned Child Services.
The policeman and
the freckle-faced lady
who came to our door
smiling
asked if we knew
where our mommy was,
or our daddy.
When we shook our heads no,
they took us away.
I tugged my big sister’s hand.
“Carol? Are they taking us to jail?”
“No,” she said. So why did they
pile us in a police car,
like we were guilty
of some crime?
AFTERMATH
They kept us together
for two years,
serving us up
to strangers,
a merry-go-round of
unfamiliar places,
unknown faces of people
with names my tears
washed away.
Don’t ask me
how many homes,
or where.
Those days are lost.
I held on to nothing except
my sister’s hand.
JERSEY
I recall being five,
doing foster-time
at a temporary placement
across the George Washington Bridge
in Jersey:
a detached A-frame floats into view,
red brick, with the suggestion
of a lawn out front,
a place that screamed wholesome.
Inside, Carol and I were whipped
whenever the foster parents’ progeny
misbehaved and pointed
in our direction.
Carol woke me one sunrise.
“Quiet,” she warned in a whisper,
then bundled me, like a bear,
in heavy clothing
and crept down the stairs
with me tiptoeing behind.
On the hall table,
she found the lady’s purse,
made a few dollars disappear
without the use of magic,
then motioned to the front door.
A few more careful steps,
and we were gone,
racing downhill in first light,
dodging patches of ice
from the last snow.
A neighbor’s dog snarled as we passed,
and I stuck to the spot, trembling.
“Don’t worry,” Carol comforted me,
“he’s on a leash.” I breathed easier.
“Carol?” I asked, starting to walk again,
“Where are we going?” Not that it mattered.
I’d have followed her anywhere.
LONG DISTANCE
A forever ride of subway trains
and buses
led us to Grandma’s house
in Washington Heights.
We rang her bell,
listened for the crackle
of the intercom.
Her tinny voice came through.
“Who is it?”
“Hi, Grandma,” I said.
“It’s me.” “And me,” said Carol.
“Good God!” she said.
“What are you doing here?”
Before we could answer,
she rang us in.
She shuffled to her door
in robe and pajamas,
but already wearing
her perfectly coiffed
reddish-brown wig
to hide her early-onset
female-pattern baldness.
Grandma got
right to the point.
“What are you two doing here?”
Carol explained while I
took in the living room.
The sofa was slick
with that horrible plastic cover
that stuck to your butt
when you sat on it,
especially in the heat of summer,
but it was big enough
for my sister and me
to sleep on,
and that’s all that mattered.
“Why didn’t you call your mother?”
Grandma asked.
Carol and I gave each other a look.
“We don’t know where she is now.”
“Lord,” said Grandma.
“Well, you can stay here—
for a few days. But that’s it.
I’ve already raised my kids.
I’m done.”
Her words slammed me in the face
like a door.
Did we do something wrong?
Is that why no one wants us?
Troubled thoughts
clung to me like shadow
through the day,
and sleep that night
was fitful.
Still, no nightmare visited
till morning
when Children’s Services
slipped in quietly
to take us away—
Carol to one home,
me to another.
As I walked out the door,
I dried my eyes
so Grandma could clearly see
my hatred.
MARCH KIDNAP
Anger and I
stood stiff on the train platform
next to Mr. Klein,
the social worker,
his thin face a pasty white oval,
nose straight as a ferret, lips pouty,
his cat-gray eyes peering from
wire-rimmed glasses,
his hair a dirty-blond cap
of spring-loaded curls.
Every now and then,
I stomped my cold feet
to keep them from getting numb.
Inches from Mr. Klein,
I gripped my suitcase with one hand
and buried the other in my pocket
so he couldn’t reach out and hold it
as if he had a right.
He was taking me away from my sister,
taking me—where?
That’s when the tears came,
each drop following the salty trail
already marked.
TRAIN RIDE
I kneeled on the tweed-covered seat,
bifocals pressed against the sooty window.
“Sit properly,”
Mr. Social Worker told me,
as if that mattered.
Ignoring him, I watched the sun
turn the river into a mirror,
in some places solid enough
to walk on, in others broken
into odd bits, like my family—
pieces of light scattered.
Where’d they take my sister?
More than an hour passed
before the ticket-taker
strode through the train car
belting out, “Ossining!
Next stop, Ossining!”
which is where
my future waited.
The Mystery of Memory #1
Author and storyteller,
I cry out for order,
logical sequences,
and smooth transitions.
A modicum of skill
allows me to create as much—
in story. But here?
Where is the chronology of a life
chaotic from the start?
There is no certainty of sequence,
no seamless transitions,
nothing as neat and orderly as that.
Only scraps of knowing
wedged between blank spaces,
flashes of who, what, and when
to capture as best I can—
a poor offering, I know,
but I am the widow,
and this is my mite.
BOOK TWO
1955–1960
“It is you who light my lamp; the Lord, my God lights up my darkness.”
—Psalm 18:28
Search my life for luck,
and bad is all you’ll find.
Keep an eye out
for grace, though.
Hard evidence appears
round every corner.
It is the invisible bridge
spanning the abyss,
the single light
that outstrips the dark
every time.
THE FAMILY BUCHANAN
Anne Sharrock Buchanan,
a five-foot-eight-inch woman,
light-skinned and sturdy,
met us at the door,
her husband, James,
a walnut-colored man
beside her.
The word crowded
popped into my mind.
Several children
crowded the entryway.
The narrow hallway
we stepped into
was covered with
sand-colored wallpaper,
busy with bouquets