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You tell yourself there is larger guilt,
But this only much, much later,
Years after the weighted box sank into the silt
Of the fast-flowing river’s water.
You refused to look, but still hear the mews
Of pink mouths below the blind closed eyes.
It wasn’t then, nor is it now, real news
(Compared to all the suffering and lies
In the world) that this litter was drowned.
Your father made you do it, threatened
You if you didn’t. Now it is known
Only to you two what happened to those kittens.
You still weigh whose fault it was--and is--
Yours, for carrying out the ordered chore, or
his?
Kimberly L. Becker has recent or forthcoming publications
in Autumn Sky, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Ghoti Magazine,
and Triplopia, as well as in an anthology of contemporary
women’s poetry, Letters to the World (Red
Hen Press). Her poems inspired a dance choreographed
by Dr. Lenette Perra, Ballet Master and Resident
Choreographer of TCDE. Kim has held a state fellowship
in fiction (New Jersey), with short fiction in Parting
Gifts. A Southerner of European and Cherokee descent,
she lives with her family in the Washington, D.C.
area and may be reached at malinoiskim38@yahoo.com
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