The Talk

In the sunless wooden room at noon

the mother had a talk with her daughter.

The rudeness could not go on, the meanness

to her little brother, the selfishness.

The eight-year-old sat on the bed

in the corner of the room, her irises distilled as

the last drops of something, her firm

face melting, reddening,

silver flashes in her eyes like distant

bodies of water glimpsed through woods.

She took it and took it and broke, crying out

I hate being a person!

diving

into the mother

as if

into

a deep pond—and she cannot swim,

the child cannot swim.