Celia looked at her reflection
In the back of the spoon;
Her face was blown outward
As if captured on some balloon.
It almost made her laugh;
The memory of it;
How she and her sister Sassy
Would do that as kids,
Before the dark days,
Before her death in a bath.
That drowning, that sad death.
Sassy’s husband had beaten her
Black and blue and green
And she’d hide herself away
So as not to be seen.
But she’d seen her,
Seen the bruises
Like smudged tattoos,
The closed eyes,
The swollen lips,
The hardly able to talk words
Pushing through the mouth
To say: he says he loves me still.
Celia stared at her reflection,
The way her own mouth was distorted,
Her lips blown up, her eyes enlarged,
Out of proportion.
She almost laughed,
But something about Sassy’s sad death
Made her stifle any guffaw
That may have broken free
From her distorted reflected jaw.
There was the time she’d seen her
******* for bed when she stayed
Because Sassy’s husband (the weird freak)
Was off on business, some big deal,
Needing to be pulled off,
And she saw the black and blueness
With tinges of green
Along her naked flesh,
The buttocks welted
Where he had belted.
Sassy had said nothing,
Had not noticed Celia looking,
Had not thought it unusual
To be unclothed as such
Away from other’s peering eyes.
Now Sassy was dead;
Found in the bath;
Drugged out, wrists slit,
Having drowned recorded.
But he had driven her over the edge;
He had bullied and beaten
Like some spoilt cruel child
An unwanted toy.
Celia turned the spoon over
And put it down.
No more desire to laugh,
Just fond memories of Sassy
Before her death in the bath.