out round the back of the house
the paint had chipped off into white flakes
and laid on the ground in the tall grass
like snow in the Colorado summer.
They cracked under your weight as you ran through them,
clumsily after grasshoppers and butterflies;
you killed them, sometimes, on accident,
when you were too excited or loved it all too much;
you grabbed at them as if they were plastic toys,
as if Dad's work might make them whole again,
and you sobbed when they broke in your soft,
childish hands; you did not understand then
what you had done, or why,
wiping onto your pants in rushed confusion
the dust from their crushed wings.
Your pleasure in pressing the life
out of them was guiltless, terrifying,
contagious, and we could not help
but laugh and play along.

I see you now,
I watch you work the glowing red tip
of the finished cigarette into the ashtray;
you are not so different as you were then, only
it is this family in your hand now;
you crack and break us,
you do not understand what you do,
or why.

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