Always reacted bad to happy—crushed it
when I could like a gimpy bird squirming
under my work boot— at two I chucked
a metal Tonka truck into the TV
to shut my sister’s singing to Big Bird
on Sesame Street—drove fists into the cake
my mom made for my birthday—a tiny
silver plane pulled my name in blue
cursive across a fluffy field of white
icing—goddamn, her face—too much pretty
and I shook with rage, had to smash things up.
Bad tooth abscess at 13—oxycotin
for the pain—and lo and fucking behold
it tamped the demon down—drove that beast
into a cave, kept it at bay—but the price
for peace a man is made to pay—gerbil wheel
of scoringdealingjailrehab—ring of ink
roped ’round my neck every year—last stint in
the fits just quit—got out, stayed clean, went
to AA, Tech for welding degree—met
Katie and bam! the kid—one year, I can
breathe. Until today—we came to camp out
by the river for my birthday—Katie, baby
at her tit, back lit with some goddamn golden
shaft of light beaming through the pin oak trees—
and I could feel the old gear ratchet up
in my guts— thought I’d shit—wanted to hit
them or worse—the hatchet heavy in my hand
from splitting firewood. Told her I had to piss—
then dove for the double dose of gray
death and works stashed under the truck seat.
Had to—when my boy was born I put one
hand on his head, the other on my heart
and swore if I ever had just one thought
of hurting him I’d do myself in then
and there. So—here I am— hunkered
down on a tree stump sunk in the muck
and reeds—when the tide turns I’ll punch
it in—by the time I’m good and gone
the rogue current will sweep me clean
away—and my sweet fucking Katie-girl
back at that picnic table with the cake,
the candles waiting to be lit. I guess
the sole witness to the only vow
I’ve ever made much less kept is that black
bittern above circling back to her nest.
Nancy Mitchell is a 2012 Pushcart Prize winner and the author of two volumes of poetry, The Near Surround (Four Way Books, 2002) and Grief Hut (Cervena Barva Press, 2009). Her third book, The Out-of- Body Shop is forthcoming in 2018. Her poems have appeared in, Agni, Columbia College Literary Review, Green Mountains Review, Poetry Daily, Tar River Review, Thrush, Tulane Review, and Washington Square Review among others. She is the co-editor of and chief contributor to Plume Interviews I (2017). Mitchell teaches at Salisbury University in Maryland and serves as the Associate Editor of Special Features for Plume.