SENSE AND NONSENSE

THE SECRET

In the picture I am smiling,
My hair freshly permed.
A big white bow bobby-pinned
To a huge mass of curls.
A  beauty parlor perm that
Momma couldn’t get her comb
Through for a whole year.

I am smiling in front
Of the playhouse
That my dadda made for me,
Behind the apple tree.
That’s my swing dangling down
From its branches.

In the picture I am smiling
Must be after telling Momma
The Secret…
The secret of why I was such a
Nervous child. Why I worried about
things. Why I’d forget to tidy
my playhouse and then worry
when the babysitter came.
She said she’d spank me
If it wasn’t clean.

The babysitter was fourteen
My brother was two and I was four
When she pulled down
her pants on the
kitchen floor.

My brother’s outside, I cried
You must let him in.
I will open the door
After you do
What I tell you to
She cooed.

I recall the tiny window
At the top part of the door
And I can hear
My brother screaming
As I crouched there on the floor.

And I  still feel a sense of shame
Seventy-three years later!