Emily Gropp
OUR LITTLE KNOCKER
Drying rack tipped in the mud beside our trailer.
Clothes soiled again before mother ever wears them.
His black cat tries to scratch my eyes out.
"Your mother wants you to have a magical childhood,"
he says. I'm old enough to call things by name.
Mother wants him out. Wants the relatives to quit their, "Poor Willie."
Why won't she say what happens to her? Instead
she pounds his boots on the plastic grass to stop the mud
from getting any farther.
My best friend won't quit dancing
at the worst place. Her ex out of prison on Tuesday,
the locks changed. But what she needs is
a new address. Why's mother say, "Okay," tugging a fresh sheet
from the bin, letting the danger in. It takes a long time to see it:
My friend is telling mother's story.
The danger's already in.
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