Family Story 

The girl runs faster

than the mother’s thick legs after her

past the sign neither can read,

the girl not yet—some

hard word like Carondelet or Xavier—

the mother, never. The girl

trusts her thin, mosquito-bit legs

slashing the air

like stilettos on tires

and does not look back

at the mother stopped, cursing

her from the street she dare not cross for fear

she will not know the signs

home. She waits for the girl just inside,

her first lash on those bare legs masked

by the slam of the screen door,

the next their own hard cracks

until the girl slides under the bed

where her little brother waits, shaking.

The cat-o’-nine-tails scrapes

cool linoleum, scratching

like cat’s claws. The girl thinks

Mama cannot reach us here, cannot

imagine all our places to run or hide.

The brother pees his pants.

The girl lets her skirt soak it up

and in its warmth they fall

asleep until the father’s heavy steps

and the rattling of milk bottles

left from his day’s route wake them.

They hear the mother

in the kitchen curse

the girl again in Cajun French,

bad girl, disobedient, refusing

even to let her poor brother out

from under the bed for supper.

The father drags a low chair to the bed,

bends to remove his sturdy boots

so close the girl can hear his teeth clench,

then rises and answers: Tell me first.

What are you making us?

First published in Persephone’s Daughters, Issue 3, Fall 2016, page 38