The Whipping

The old woman across the way     is whipping the boy againand shouting to the neighborhood     her goodness and his wrongs.

Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,     pleads in dusty zinnias,while she in spite of crippling fat     pursues and corners him.

She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling     boy till the stick breaksin her hand.  His tears are rainy weather     to woundlike memories:

My head gripped in bony vise     of knees, the writhing struggleto wrench free, the blows, the fear     worse than blows that

Words could bring, the face that I     no longer knew or loved . . .

Well, it is over now, it is over,     and the boy sobs in his room,

And the woman leans muttering against     a tree, exhausted, purged—avenged in part for lifelong hidings     she has had to bear.