Papa always picked the smallest doll: <br />Movable legs and arms held <br />together by rubber bands. <br /> <br />Sneaking through the door <br />In bare feet-not waking all <br />And placing it in a box beside <br />Little candies and fruits <br /> <br />The firewood snapped and popped <br />Lighting up the house like firework <br />On the Fourth of July…they slept. <br />Was that terrible act <br />Perfectly covered up? <br /> <br />For years, I called the action into question: <br />Whose eyes the wool was pulled over? <br />How could he in his drunken stupor <br />Slip in and out unnoticed to <br />Steal her innocence? <br /> <br />I remember mama sitting <br />At the kitchen table, with <br />A baby in arm, <br />Another on her knee, and <br /> Starring down <br />At the butcher knife. <br />Eyes dripping blood as <br />She looked at her little girls. <br />Then regret and silence <br />Slit her heart. <br /> <br />Years later… <br />I visited her in the nursing home. <br />She was seated in an old rocking chair with <br />Head bowed; her silver hair wilted on shoulders; <br />Each day's images and thoughts were <br />Trying to dig a passageway out of her mind… <br />I asked, ' why you couldn't -or <br /> wouldn’t catch that thief' <br /> “ I had to wait for the grim reaper to catch him” <br /> <br />Almedia S. Knight or ASK, <br />04/24/07<br /><br />Almedia Knight Oliver<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/present-from-a-thief/
