Written on 10 January 2012

This is a poem about the childhood of a woman I spoke with some years ago.

WHAT WAS THAT MOMENT?
A Poem by Alice B. Clagett
10 January 2012

What was that moment in my tender years
when I succumbed to the notion
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . that love’s a scarce commodity?

–was I left crying on the bathroom floor? Was that it?

–was I awakened at night by a stranger’s hand
. . . . . as my mother — in some faraway place —
. . . . . gave birth to my competition?

–was it the moment when my folks
. . . . . walked up the porch steps
. . . . . . . . . . — right past the former apple of their eyes —
. . . . . bearing that sleeping newborn babe?
. . . . . Hush! You’ll wake him!

Not that? When, then?

That was the moment when I — unknowingly —
Gave up my birthright for that all-too-human myth.

Alice B. Clagett

Except where otherwise noted, “The Chalice and the Crucible” by Alice B. Clagett … https://chaliceandcrucible.com/ … is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) … https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ..