The Flaw (Satis Shroff, Freiburg) Poem by Satis Shroff

I constantly live in fear.
Angst to be unmasked.
My spouse knows it.
My daughter knows it.
But no one else does.

I feel like a failure in life,
Because I have this flaw.
My parents had no time.
They worked and slaved
To earn our daily bread.
Father came often with a bad breath
From the taverns and inns.
He beat us and mother.
My teacher thrashed me too.
I had concentration problems.

As a child I had to work
With a wooden hoe and a bull,
For terraced farming wasn’t easy,
And my father was a farmer.

I felt ignored by my parents.
My mother would have helped me
Were she not perpetually tired
And at her wits’ end.
I cheated at school
But didn’t pass the school exam.

I grew up as a man
Without reading
Without writing.
I had the gift of the gab though
Throughout my life,
And even bluffed some
Quite a few sometimes.