Shawna Hogan



It was selectively forgotten,
that time in the discolored
end-of-winter playground
the older boys dared me to
hit the one about my age, and how it
sounded as I met then exceeded
their challenge, holding him down and
landing not one definitive punch but enough
to surprise all of us,
my fist dulled by his down jacket and baby fat,
exposed at the stomach and mottled from the cold.
Another startling sound-- my own alien laugh, victorious
as he managed to spit between dry sobs
“I hate you, bitch!”
then made like one hunted for home, where there were
sympathies, snacks offered, and where girls
did not turn mean for the attention of it.

I don’t know how the brain sorts what it will prize
from the taboo.
I just know that March day was banished,
along with other childhood deeds
that did not flatter the child. And that,
years later, when my mother would clumsily tiptoe
to where my body faked sleep, tearfully
whispering “I love you, baby I’m so sorry baby”
in sweet, booze-sloppy breaths, I would
stumble straight into that memory--
the boy, my exhilarated face, the surrounding crowd.
And what brought the fire to my cheeks as she bent
to kiss them was seeing how hungry I was then,
was being that hungry now, heart pounding like a
triggered alarm I wanted to break out of the wall.