Domestic

My father, the policeman, drove past the prison,
delivering me to my Saturday job on his way to the station.
In there, he said, they’re all murderers. Very quiet,
not what you’d expect. The prison officers
all want to work there, it’s such an easy job.
All the blokes in there murdered their wives.
Wouldn’t say boo to a goose most of them.
Just a one time thing, apparently. They just got pushed
too far and snapped, picked up a knife or a hammer –
it was all over in a moment, too late to take it back.
They confess right away. Some of them
call the police themselves. They’re all in there
together, doing their time, mild little men.

He seemed proud of them: men who had just once
stood up for themselves. How often had my mother
pushed him? How far did she have to go?

Thunder, 1954

Thunderstorms seemed bigger to me
in those days. I lay awake, tucked up in white sheets,
looking toward the bedroom window where my mother
showed me the dance of blue-white fire over clouds.
She had long ago gone back to bed, when my father
came in, quietly, in the spasmodic dark, closing the door
behind him. He sat down and took my small hand
in his big hot palm. You're not frightened, are you? he asked.
I told him truly, No. The storm rebounded from the hills
above our town, with the sound of giants moving furniture.
My father's shoulders hunched. I could smell his sweat.
Your mother's asleep. He wanted talk, but I couldn't
have known what to say. A huge glare, the sky cracking.
Can you smell the cordite?
What's cordite? I asked.
You smell it when they fire the big guns.
He went to the window and looked out into blackness.
As the lightning came and went his arms hugged
his own black silhouette. Go back to sleep, he told me.