The ducks had gathered
on the ice-covered lake
at a melted circle.
A chopin nocturne
played feebly in my mind,
stumbling at the difficult parts.
Gulls circled overhead,
the January sun gleaming white
on their wings against
frigid, sapphire skies.
For months she had been pulling
food out of the refrigerator,
trailing the torn pieces behind her
as she darted about the house.
Whole loaves of bread
found still packaged,
small mouth-sized holes
bitten right through the plastic.
Smug bumper stickers read,
"My daughter's on the honor roll!"
In stores I saw dolls for sale
memories of the normal.
My eldest would have loved that doll
as a mother would love a child.
My youngest would love
only its string hair.
It had been just two years.
The boys had been dancing
in the living room,
paper bag masks on their heads,
Disney music blaring,
the baby merrily watching me
as I painted each star,
careful to make them different,
everything so uncomplicated then,
nothing wrong with the kids
a little antibiotic couldn't cure.
At night the faint sound
of crying children
lurked in the back of my skull.
I'd get up to check, find the asleep,
or I'd stop what I was doing,
listen intently, certain
they were weeping.
The boy's self portrait
showed a malformed head,
big eyes, large smile,
long arms extending parallel
to the ground,
disproportionately huge
three-fingered hands,
no body, only long stick legs,
upon which the head rested.
Floating around and behind him
were "scary eyeballs"
he had dreamed of.
We waited in a private room
-the little one still screaming -
biting and hitting her hands
against the wall with such force,
I feared she might break them.
I sat on the floor,
inserted my hands behind hers
to help cushion the glows.
The next day her hands
would be blue with bruises.
Between her shrieks,
I heard the happy chatter
of another mother and the doctor
in the next room:
her baby's "well child" check up.
How simple it must be
for some people:
a new tooth here, a new word there!
I pushed the play button
on my portable Panasonic.
Big Walter Horton whined
through my earphones:
"Trouble in mind. Lord, I'm blue,
but I won't be blue always,
'cause ya know, the sun's
gonna shine through
my back door someday."
-1990