I was ten when,
perhaps,
out of curiosity,
the boy across the street
took me off guard;
took my shirt by its ruffled hem
and lifted.

Snatching back the fabric,
I staggered back,
my arms crossed,
covering my chest,
shirt back where it belonged.
Still—
he had seen.

And bursting
with spiteful delight,
the boy swore
my telltale hair
was his only sign—
me
or my brother?

And because I wept
at home that night,
Pop took my mother aside,
imagining himself
out of earshot,
and said,
“I could just
kill that kid.”

Then, facing me,
asked why I cried,
said, “Boy, that boy
from across the street,
what a shmuck.
what a stupid boy.
ain’t he, Princess?”
And kissed
my telltale hair.

And when he said,
“Nothing to get
so upset over,”
I was too young to see
what he meant to say:
“I’m not afraid
some kid tried to look
beneath my daughter’s shirt—
Only that one day,
she’ll let him.”

At seventeen, I saw better,
though, not enough to see
that first love can end
without the world ending too.

It was my father who told me this,
promising, in perfect
Nicky-Newarker, “Someone once said—
not sure who, but, someone famous—
he said, “This too
shall Pass.”

Then, working to lure
a smile from my lips,
offered, “Want me to kill him,
Princess?”
I laughed, knowing
he was mostly joking.

At nineteen, I lie
in a hospital bed,
driven there by fever
and my father.
And pleasantly, they addressed
his interrogation:
“Not sepsis yet but,
I think we’ll keep her.”

And Pop swore in the fluorescent corridor,
as if they had reported
I would die there.
He told my mother,
“I could just
kill that doctor,”
and, moments later,
began to cry.

My father was forty-eight
When he touched
the barrel to his tender palate,
lips enveloping
the cold lead,
stole his nerve,
and broke
his daughter’s heart.

I could just
kill him.