Childhood Scenes

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Pampered tears moistened the ceiling; clear small nomads

eluding the ducts.

                The room became

      a rain forest. Maniacal tears. Boy water. 

Though only around the corner from where I lived,

proximity quelled no tears.

It was just for the night, 

                no lengthy stay: an overnight at my cousin's place.

Both of us, ten. But me, less scrappy. No nail-toughness, no steel knees.

After bed, my eyes, opening at 3am, as child eyes will;

I saw nothing familiar, everything unlike my world;

            I only heard Eric's snoring from the bunk above

and my own heart beating savagely; blood filled drum. 

Tears came; slow, hot, running, inevitable: clear lava.

Aunt Grace left her bed, came to comfort me. The strange, 

evil toys stared. The strange aunt asking me what is wrong.

My strange voice, imitating someone unknown; voice stripped and 

                 frightened. "I want my mother,"

left my throat; a tortured song.



At breakfast Eric laughed at the silly night scene,

his derision, scissors cutting my paper chest.


Away from home. Away from golden family. Away from recognizable arms.

Immature crying in the night like spring drizzle when

the familiar is gone. The familiar, upon its exit,

weeps too; the brown-ness of my eyes nearly washed away.

Boy water in the night. 

                                        Boy water drowning the face.

© Lamont Palmer

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