04-04-2015, 12:25 PM
At the reunion
A slow unraveling begins.
Half-remembered faces
like ghosts, drowned in fat
or trapped behind cobwebs of wrinkles.
My French teacher taught me
what a victim is, how power rots,
that innocence is no excuse for anything.
I'd looked forward to meeting her again.
She’d married my art teacher
in the meantime. Neither of them
reaches my shoulders; she hunches
and scurries, more insect than bird.
Do they still write, paint? No,
they’re busy redecorating their home.
We’re doing one room at a time
and making them perfect.
I ask how long they’ve lived there.
They reply fortytwo years.
Silently I forgive her.
She’s had punishment enough.
A slow unraveling begins.
Half-remembered faces
like ghosts, drowned in fat
or trapped behind cobwebs of wrinkles.
My French teacher taught me
what a victim is, how power rots,
that innocence is no excuse for anything.
I'd looked forward to meeting her again.
She’d married my art teacher
in the meantime. Neither of them
reaches my shoulders; she hunches
and scurries, more insect than bird.
Do they still write, paint? No,
they’re busy redecorating their home.
We’re doing one room at a time
and making them perfect.
I ask how long they’ve lived there.
They reply fortytwo years.
Silently I forgive her.
She’s had punishment enough.