25/30

Unspeakable

Lately I think of the way we were state
property as kids mailed from home to home
parceled out for the same sins that dissolved
our parents in those clover honey years
we wouldn’t dare pronounce the softer words
for adults for fear it might enliven
some fearful grey uncertainty I’d spell
out the names butchered into something safe
and you would call them fox and hound more cruel
and apt than five years old can know do you
think fox is sick you asked I don’t think so
I said then why do they whisper so much
because d a d promised not to yell
and m o m has always talked that way