Abuse
Singer sounded like "stinger,"
Fifty years gone, but fresh....
The long sewing machine drive belt
Hung thin and waiting by the broom.
Mother handled it like a snake,
Writhing in the after school air
When she used it to soothe
Menopausal rages.

Welts and shame, rose-red arose
When she stripped them of their clothes;
Struck hard the tender flesh:
Buttocks, thighs,
Panicked wrists and hands,
Flailing in the silence of a preacher's home.

"I never struck in anger,"
She likes to say.
A counselor chills to hear...
A cool-headed striker of children so sick
To give her children the gift
Of bruises, without emotion.