The champion of tenderness and harmony in the home
Than to accept her depreciation, grow cold and unyielding!
It is permitted for you to emulate your mother.
It is different for a boy, who must leave her to wive,
His father’s name written on his forehead –
The name of one who walks out on women.
Adult estrangement is one violation of selfhood,
Extreme proximity another. Something
In a daughter’s quiet is inwardly corrosive,
Something tinged with sordidness and cruelty.
She had drowned her memories in a sea of denial –
To trouble her from time to powerless time
With loathsome images floating on her conscience,
As fresh at eighteen as if it were yesterday –
But yesterday could be handled. Why is she sad?
That is the unanswered question, where relief
Is only found in unburdening the joyless
Child in the adult no one will listen to.