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Poetry | August 2011

After the Playground

By Kathleen Kirk

My son has a scar above his left eye,
disappearing now into his black brow,
from the day his friend chased him into a post
of steel and molded concrete in the playground fence.
I knew what would happen next: hospital,
three stitches, removal of the stitches in time,
a scar on his perfect baby face,

but I didn’t predict this vanishing act
at fourteen, the mustache like a smudge of soot
on his upper lip, the full sensual sneer,
the way he refuses to move his jaws
when he speaks, or show much more than scorn
for a world that deserves his mockery.
How easily he hides the mark of pain.

5 replies on “After the Playground”

Cathysays:
August 8, 2011 at 6:04 pm

Girls morph, boys turn overnight into someone you hardly recognize. It’s all good, though, because they come out men in the end. Lord knows if they stayed the way they are ate 13 or 14, nobody would ever marry any of them!

Quite a moving poem. I’m noting a bit of Sharon Olds influence.

Reply
Nancysays:
August 8, 2011 at 7:09 pm

Oh, Kathleen, so true. I see plainly the scar from seven stitches across the back of the Woolly Mammoth’s head that reappeared each summer when he got his soft puppy dog buzz cut. His wonderful friend girl has no idea it is there.

Reply
Chrissays:
August 14, 2011 at 3:37 pm

How is it that a fourteen year-old boy is quite taken over by scorn? His clueless stance is more about you, than him. Rather I think it is you who feels “a world that deserves his mockery.” Be honest and write your own rebel-down-to-the-ground-in-surround-sound poem.

Reply
Kathleen Kirksays:
September 16, 2011 at 6:58 am

Thanks for you comments, all!

Chris, I see “scorn” as a stage many teenagers go through, the family often coming through fine on the other side of it. As you say, “a world that deserves his mockery” reveals the mother-speaker’s stance as well as the son’s, a mark of my own honesty.

Reply
Peg Kirksays:
September 16, 2011 at 9:22 am

It’s a wise mother who knows her own son. It’s a wise poet who can speak for both.

Reply

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