Great-Granddaughter
When I arrived you called me John,
Katie’s John, I guess, mixed up with me
in the background meadow of memory.
I sat Therese on your mattress
but cradled her away when her babble
started flicking at your lids,
her blindness shining off your yawning false teeth.
She couldn’t see the difference in your skin,
the frescoes of the beating treatment,
the white bones in the bruised
black back of your hand,
or the whiteness like fungus veining your horned feet
when Katie drew up the sheet.
She seemed to see nothing
but the clock circling on the wall.
She’s smiling at clocks now,
pointing when we say “Tick Tock.”
She knows little of the Rubicon you’ve crossed,
only what she knows in the cries
it kills us not to answer
as she struggles toward her morning sleep.
Daniel Fitzpatrick grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, and now lives in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his wife and daughter. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Dallas, and his poems have appeared in 2River View, Coe Review, and Eunoia Review, among others.