Present From A Thief Poem by Almedia Knight-Oliver

Papa always picked the smallest doll:
Movable legs and arms held
together by rubber bands.

Sneaking through the door
In bare feet-not waking all
And placing it in a box beside
Little candies and fruits

The firewood snapped and popped
Lighting up the house like firework
On the Fourth of July…they slept.
Was that terrible act
Perfectly covered up?

For years, I called the action into question:
Whose eyes the wool was pulled over?
How could he in his drunken stupor
Slip in and out unnoticed to
Steal her innocence?

I remember mama sitting
At the kitchen table, with
A baby in arm,
Another on her knee, and
Starring down
At the butcher knife.
Eyes dripping blood as
She looked at her little girls.
Then regret and silence
Slit her heart.

Years later…
I visited her in the nursing home.
She was seated in an old rocking chair with
Head bowed; her silver hair wilted on shoulders;
Each day's images and thoughts were
Trying to dig a passageway out of her mind…
I asked, ' why you couldn't -or
wouldn’t catch that thief'
“ I had to wait for the grim reaper to catch him”

Almedia S. Knight or ASK,
04/24/07