Like the Fourth Finger of My Left Hand
[creative nonfiction]
So damned sick of delicate things.
My co-worker who was raped over and over. I want to time travel,
tell his five-year-old self, Punch your father’s friend in the face the next time he touches you.
Don’t say resilience. Children are breakable.
I’m tired of my toe poking through the sock printed with zebras, and I just bought the socks.
Stupid delicate things. As if they were made of sand.
How my oldest son barely keeps the sarcasm out of his response when the cop studies his license
and is surprised he has an Anglo surname. When he and a friend are pulled over
for an infraction so slight.
Control of the voice, hair trigger.
A sock that should last more than a season.
The brain’s hair-fine bridge between thought and action. Tired of delicate cycles,
how they leave clothes soaking wet.
Bones of the ear like scrimshaw, one’s favorite drinking glass,
the balance of water in semi-arid regions of Kenya.
The part that snaps that they don’t make anymore.
Your shield against inner rage that crumbles like a brittle castle
of drying sand. So fed up with delicate issues in your family, between brothers born too close.
Like who pays for the fiftieth wedding anniversary bash and is thereby king. The fur on Esau’s body.
Sick of the whiskey makers putting it delicately on their labels, Enjoy responsibly. The moment
the bridge is crossed.
The split second I’m no longer your wife but a she-devil. The delicate shift of target.
Dendrites soaking wet with Tullamore Dew, tentacles in a tide pool slammed with waves.
The fractured plastic that keeps the sliding door of the van on its track.
The cheek of our son with autism which the broken piece almost grazes
when you hurl it.
Thin quilts on the bunk beds where I lie with our sons. The vapor of alcohol on your breath
in the next room.
The door that never works again, and the boys
forgetting and standing at it to be let in. The flimsy gate of memory that then admits
a deafening howl, the party gone wrong, fists, Why did Daddy push Rogan?
The soft-spoken man I’m tutoring from Kenya who’s writing a story about a boy collecting every drop of rain. The way the man sets down the glass bottle holding spring water. He’s brought it for me, carrying it in a quilted bag.
The circle of damp
on the library’s table.
* Oh, delicate ring.
Laura English posts a daily blog called “
