Joolz (alias Julianne Denby)
Poet from the UK
SoSe 96
| In the family We could have kept it contained. We could have kept it to ourselves, with no public prying eyes and some hope of salvation. It would have been better. It would have been quieter. The knowledge of damnation, the stench of failure ... Night after night, I could only ask why and only hear your refusal to respond. My own breathing whispers in my ears, my own blood hammers in your veins. You look at me with viper's eyes and my tongue refuses to obey me. Where were you? Where have you been? Is it starting again? Is it? Is it? Is it? More courts, more fear, more echoes of shame. In hospital rooms the family dissected, while you and I sit unable to command our fate in the experts' hands. We could have kept it contained, we could have kept it to ourselves, if we were not blood strangers in a world made strange and bloody and I can't understand, I can't understand ... |
Illustration by Joolz
from "Emotional Terrorism", Bloodaxe Books, 1990 |
