End of the Marriage

I buried the paper dolls

In the empty lot behind our house.

First laying them flat on cotton pads

And then sliding them inside

The thick white leaves of an envelope.

Childhood was over. The girls

Were growing breasts, and the boys

Were watching, their faces sprouting

With pimples and dark, sharp hairs

Jutting up on their jaws and cheeks.

After church was when I’d lay them out

On the living room floor and move them

Around in the shapes of life. Nearby,

My father was always reading his paper.

My mother was roasting the Sunday meat.

And all that time, as she basted

And baked, my mother was sleeping

With another man, someone we would

Never even meet. Maybe that was why

My father sat so rigidly in the armchair

Where he could see her in the kitchen,

Bending down to thrust the thermometer’s

Steel skewer deep inside the browning roast.

Only she could see the center was still cool

And bloody pink—the meat too raw to eat.