They open, at forty, cabinets their father locked,
boys again, whispering bad words beneath blankets,
girls spitting the big verbs at their mirrors.
Something sharp and rusty on their tongues again,
something more he’d hoped to spare them:
new bedside silences for visiting hours,
new definitions for never, for over,
quiet words boomed from pulpit mikes,
and, afterwards, the whispers of dark suited cousins.
Women hugging pregnant friends practice
new phrases, concealing the chill. Grown men
yank shut the curtains of their brilliant studies
to stop the black glass listening.
The Swear Box
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