By Frederick Levy
Our radio wouldn’t dare blast through my father’s orations;
he’d tote his small son on drug rep calls, navigate back roads,
the ultimate detail man.
Other times, he’d drive mute and stare,
while I’d try to decipher his silent accusations.
Alone in plain sight, I felt trapped in the tundra of his glare.
We sat in the waiting room, chairs touching,
our silence the grenade of the unsaid.
Absently letting my hand fall on the armrest,
I screamed soundlessly as my skin
leapt from the webbing of my thumb;
his fingernail drew blood.
Bewildered, frozen, nothing to hold, nothing to protest.
For as long as I knew, I sheltered, eyes closed,
in lands of my creation
but the world fell away in steep decline.
“It never happened.
He never cut me.
He’d never hurt me.”
Shallow bursts of breath…”it never happened.”
We drove home with nothing to see,
the windshield blackened.
Fred Levy is age 74, a clinical social worker of 46 years, who retired April, 2020 to focus full time on writing poetry. He has been taking numerous poetry courses and workshops at The Muse Writing Center in Norfolk, Virginia, which has offered him the opportunity to exchange valuable experiences with other poets. An observant Reform Jew and active in his synagogue, he has been married for 44 years to his Presbyterian spouse. They have raised their two children – Joshua, 43, Elana, 40 – harmoniously in their two religion household. Exchanging ideas and living lives of diversity has been at the center of their family life.