And I'll finish with two.
One shorter one, one that's a little longer.
All violence begins on the playground.
Is what I think.
And this poem is basically about this: "Headlock".
"I was the cave bat.
Wings flaring from my shoulders whom the others followed down
the hill.
A girl leading all the boys in thundering descent.
So they had to make a point of beating me.
On that cold day, when the drips and whistles
of the snow creeping in the doors
kept us inside playing marbles.
Where I won for keeps.
His tawny eyed shooter, his favorite steely, and all
his blue eyed cats.
All of a sudden he grabbed me.
Using his only lethal move.
And I was on my hands and knees like a dog on his belly grabbed
by the scruff of the neck.
Yet he was not strong enough to hurt me.
So we froze in a tableau of display and shame
before the other second graders.
I knew that I could grab him by the head
and flip him over my shoulder onto the cold tiles.
And knew too, it would seriously hurt him.
I was strong enough to do it.
At seven, had already pummeled the bullies
who locked my three-year-old sister out of the house.
Had stood in the chicken yard at the age of five.
And waiting for the bus, bloodied
the face of the eight-year-old who meant to teach me a lesson.
But I paused that morning, for whatever reason,
thinking my way through the fog of embarrassment
into the deeper fog of anger.
Where something cleared into a brightness.
A clearing within me, a kind of meadow.
Ground to stand on, air to breathe,
and mercy in the world.
I let him go.
He let me go.
We let each other live."