Once Too Many Times Poem by Pasha Satara

And did I hate him then,
not knowing where his hammy fists
sank muffled shots into my mother,
not knowing that she feared his homecomings
as much as she scorned his journeys?

His travels let him weave in and out
of many women's thighs;
his tongue mapped a line of cleavage
up and down the Eastern seaboard.

He received a momentary amnesia
of honeysuckle and rose water
that was cheap enough
even for a two-bit salesman to buy...
and still pay for his ticket of beer
and the jukebox to numbness.

Did I hate him then, not knowing?
And now, not remembering
more than a blond man
shuffling towards me who stretched
the elastic of my underpanties
once too many times,
do I hate him now?

Or was that to be reserved for her,
like the tables he never booked at The Tortuga
for the anniversaries he never celebrated
with my swan-like mother,
while she stood poised and elegant
in her black velvet, her egg custard skin
set strong and firm above noble bones;
she, who never disturbed him
and never yelled, 'I hate you! ' -
yet she knew?