. . . Because God is not a flash of diamond light. God is the kicked child, the child who rocks alone in the basement ~ Ellen Bass “Bearing Witness”
after reading Roethke’s Waltz the tension in my class was tangible : to cast papa as a drunk (dealing abuse with timed fists), or just a regular joe dancing his darling to bed, lightened by an after work beer
but as these immortals debated design and argued image to metaphor Katrine’s stillness split my heart;
later she explained her stepfather’s demand of a demon’s dowry: how she nightly endured his endless gropes and gasps, in a silence which left her sister untouched, and a knife untucked from his thrusting back.