In the darkness

he makes his choice,

and her life turns in the same moonlight 

that has always silhouetted  the clown

dangling on a swing above her bed

where the hearts-and-flowers quilt

matches the paper I pressed

to the walls of her bedroom

when she was not quite five,

but she is twelve now,

with a body that both confuses

and frightens

as he runs his hands

over her budding breasts.                                                                                                 

He moves in silence

while I, unknowing, lie sleeping down the hall

in a bed we’ve shared for sixteen years.

Each morning, he sips his coffee.

Each night, he takes his seat at the table’s head

intoning the prayer of his father’s homeland:

Alle guten gaben… kommt o Gott von dir…

Through years of oblivion,

I believed there was goodness,

that God did, indeed, bring gifts,

and I made my way, hopeful

that stepping carefully ensured a right path,

that keeping peace staved off the bite of his anger,

that loving my children well offered them sanctuary.

Now, in each moment of surfacing,

I feel the burden of his choice,

and the illusion of overcoming 

slips away.

Too late, I realize that life always follows choice,

sometimes in ways one cannot imagine,

often in ways one cannot control,

and that anger ripples outward

in ever-widening circles.

Life holds sorrow like a weeping willow,

like the trunk of a plum tree

fractured by the weight of heavy snow,

its fragrance forever erased, all these years later,

by the anger that strips bare my fragile heart.