For my own good
she cracks me
on the face,

sends me into the thick
arms of my stepfather,
the one who usually

says stop,
but today returns
me with a backhand.

I scramble beneath
the dining room table,
the one reserved for special

occasions. I study
his scuffed oxfords,
her tired feet

in frayed flats.
The three of us
hushed, panting.

If you could have seen me
you might have thought, pathetic,
a girl crouched

like that. But in the cauterizing
clarity of that moment
I was hardening

into something sharp,
a carving knife or
the blade in mother’s blender,

primed to spin and slash.
We froze like that.
A family portrait – the one

where our faces ache
from smiling
at the perfectly browned bird,

the Cold Duck
in crystal stemware,
the green and red quivering

Jell-O mold. How to say
he threw me back.
He helped

flush me out.
He yanked an arm,
and she a leg.

They dragged me
across scratchy carpet,
my fingers

groping for a table leg,
clutching
air,

the moment –
a slow shutter snapping
like a wishbone

sucked clean and left to dry
on the sill,
before brother and I,

desperate to win
the greater part of the break,
would close our eyes

and pull.