the
little robin
it was one of those holidays
Thanksgiving or
Christmas
one of those dreadful things
& the whole family was
there
my little sister
was eager to show
everyone this
little
ceramic robin she had
bought at a yard sale
for just a
quarter
it was sculpted and
painted beautifully
leaning
forward
tail fanned out
ready to leap off
its small perch
and
fly
and fly
my little sister
had it in her hands
but she
tripped
down the last
flight of stairs
and when she got
up
and picked up
her little bird
the poor little
robin's
beak
was chipped
she held it up in her hands
and the
tears
oh the tears they came
it's not so bad
I
thought
I could paint
a bit of yellow
right over it
and she
wouldn't
even notice
but she cried and kept crying
and all my
father could say
all my father could say was
THEN TRY NOT TO BE
SO
GODDAMNED CLUMSY!
my father the ape
the brute created
through
the ages
who had somehow
escaped the evolution
of our
race
I was his child?
how?
my sister began to cry
louder
really howling now
clutching that barely broken little
thing
my little sister cried and cried
I felt sick
worse than
sick
I felt
crazed
and deadly
I skipped out the front
&
slammed the
screen door
hard
took a long walk
around their
lousy
neighborhood
and when I got back
everyone
was gone
and all
the
lights were out
I sat on that
porch and
lit up
a
cigarette and
my anger settled
like concrete
oh fit itself
together
like a nest
of millipedes
I never got to
paint that
robin
for my little sister
but
I felt like
killing my
father
then
& then
& forever after
after I left that
night
but time has spared me
the trouble
thinking of the bugs
and
worms chewing through
his dumb gut and
crawling across
his
fat lips dropping their
turds where they please
and that stupid
house getting
knocked down now
yellow monsters are
chewing up my old
room
built for a stupid man who
slaved to
build
eventually
nothing
good
it's good
those people
who
own the land now
are building a better house
one
can
one can hope
it's true
a house where
the little robins will
be safe
BACK