A Girl the Color of Oak - Sex~Kitten.net

A Girl the color of oak

On a park bench there is a Girl the color of Oak
Around three or four,
with her Daddy the color of Maple.
She impatiently wrestles with her braids.
(I'm no one sitting alongside waiting for a friend or bus or the wind)
She doesn't have downs syndrome
its something else-
Some other disorder that doctors probably only recently have figured out how to treat-
It's as if she is angry about something
furiously angry
Then she smiles at me
"hi"
soon the muscle spasms come
fast
twitches around the mouth
tight and crazy
It's then I know her three year old body could
kick my ass
she bustles back and forth
can't decide if she wants to go into the playground with the kids
or not
she tries different benches
Dad dutifully follows
again
twitches
different ones this time
more
bigger
Dad knows what to do,
"settle down now"
(no doctor will put his child in no special home)
will of steel-works hard for his money-Dad
won't tell her
she is different
I envision him in their Brooklyn home
struggling - to get her into her pajamas
- to comb the knots out of her hair
- to get her to eat vegetables
I imagine that he is a single father
and his life is
her
she gives me a meeeean look
the kind of mean look, if found on an adults face,
would mean my most certain demise
(or at least a good solid round of fisticuffs)
and I look back at her harder
trying to see inside - looking for more information for my little head concocted story -
and I see something
something
so much bigger
than this park bench or the music in my earphones or the great vanilla smell in the air
I see this ancient Oak of a Girl
caught in there
stuck in between some worlds
this little girl is so much more than
a hereditary oopsy-daisy
or a crack pipe mother
or a doctor's delivery error
she holds all of our stories on her rosebud lips
not only the stories of her ancestors, but the stories of mine
kept tight in the wild maze of her God chosen twitch
kept hidden in the witchy wardrobe of her night sweats
I seee you! I want to scream
but instead I smirk out/ away/ somewhere else
She is the shut up voice of African slaves-
beaten murdered raped into silence
She is the shut up voice of Jewish mothers-
who had to hold the mouths of their babies to save a room full of Jewish children from nazi death camps
She is the beaten voice of downtrodden souls-
left to walk the earth forever in search of justice
-silenced by masters, history books, the right wing-
This tiny lady,
at three or four years old
heated in twisted fits
(with her devoted Father by her side as an angel guide,)
is left with no real sentences to string together
left to grunt through speechless mouth
bite through unfair remembrances
and beat our hearts senseless with her strength
preachy it may all sound
but moved by her I was
and moved I remain.