The Betrayal

It happened one Christmas day after his divorce,
the time of year when spiritual sores grow
and rarely heal. Grandmother’s kitchen windows
fogged from the cooking. I'd have inscribed
secret signs in the moist clarity,
but all the secrets had finally drained away
like dirty water in the sink.

Maybe he'd been drinking all night. Maybe he
was sucked empty by working double shifts for a month.
Whatever, it was ugly and mean and hateful and he spewed
it at life and spawn. The unspoken betrayal spiraled
like a worm in the gut or black bird of prey in the air.
He went for the gun in his room and brought it out
like times before, but now he wanted to do himself.
Violent sorrow swelled his threat, eyes as red
as a cold and meaningless news statistic.

He walked to the barn with my Grandfather pleading
behind him to give up the gun. I let them go.
A part of me dead to the pain, to life, to survival.
We didn't talk, my sister or grandma. We waited.
When grandpa came back with the gun,
I think my father's eyes showed it then, that
sign of betrayal the years carve in memory.

In dreams he brings the gun. I wake and hear
him climbing the walls to my bedroom window.
Conscious of my betrayal, I am thankful for the bullet.

(c) copyright 2012 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

This unpublished poem was written ca. 1999. I've submitted it as part of the poetry prompt at dversepoets.com