Poem #13- Captive
Captive
The first time it happened
She was quite very small
She didn’t understand
She knew nothing at all.
Mother escaped
Leaving children behind
Thinking about safety
Praying they’d be fine.
Awakened at night
They were told to get dressed
Fumbling for clothes
Through life that was mess.
Cold dark night
They went out to find her
A man & his children
Looking for mother.
Cold was the night
Dark & so strange
A stone cold fright
Dominated their pain.
Father strolled ahead,
High on his anger,
Children lagged behind
Hoping they’d find her
The youngest,
She fumbled
& fell & scratched
her little knee,
Father just smirked
and yelled:
That’s what you get
for
Your mother leaving me.
Father loved his children
But rage was the rule
It takes you and strangles you
& makes you into its fool.
Daddy loved his children
Daddy loved his wife
But violence was something
That determined his life.
The rage it crept in
Took them all with its force
Mommy was catholic
Didn’t believe in divorce.
They stayed on for years
And this little girl
Strayed far.
Developed a toughness
That nothing could mar.
Daddy is gone now
Mommy she can’t find
Girl as woman now
Crept in from behind.
Life sometimes becomes
Like that walk through the dark
No one to guide her
No place to start.
She digs deep inside
Looks hard from within
But nothing seems to pacify
Where as a child she’d begin
On that dark walk with daddy
Through that cold dark night
Where asphalt twinkled stars
Made the wrong feel right
On that dark walk with daddy
A child died on that night
Ushering a woman in
Who has not forgotten
How to fight.
Nørrebro, Copenhagen, 2005
