Found in Mommie's files:
You put me in a box
when I was eight years old
stripped me of Christmas ornaments and birthday candles,
varnished the box with Bible study,
lined it with the close black satin of the fear of God.
Armageddon dripped down the walls,
bloody Revelation, fiery wrath--
God's vengeance for killing Mommy, I thought,
thus excusing the wicked spikes of perverse touch,
the horror of Daddy's hands.
I pilloried myself for your sins, justified your crime.
You crucified me and left me in that box.
The box was pried open, the spikes beaten into tools,
but oh! the longing the need to
stay in the box
hide in the box
die in the box!
But now---love has ripped the black satin shroud to rags.
Give me the light,
the clean, the white,
the absolute clarity outside the box.
I will use that box as a planter
for Christmas cactus and holiday flowers.
Happy holidays, dear ones.
Love
MD
out of the box