| Old Man's Eyes In one instant you aged seventy years. They say newborn babies look like little old men. A healthy and robust blond almost 2nd-grader, you looked at me the same, and then you looked away. A second before you'd been mouthing off your lip, playing your deaf act. So I repeated myself to which you yelled, "DUH!" for the five hundredth time in the last two months. My grip on calm, worn thin by days and weeks of manditory overtime, endless car and home repairs, unpaid bills, lost glasses, reflected out of the ever-present daycare hell, SNAPPED and my lash-out like a coiled snake stuck your perfect snubby and always delicate nose, which rained blood all down your front. It was all over my hand too; I didn't bother to wipe it away as I grabbed a towel from your swimming bag to catch the gushing scarlet spring. Your face was mottled but almost as red, as were the rims of your old man's eyes. Huge with disbelief and aged, they saw the world cave in, and now it's an ugly crazy place just like the ugly sobbing mother whose hand's afraid to touch her son who turns his back on her and cries and bleeds all the way home. PamEhli/2002 |
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| Since 1-20-03 |