Hey Mama

“Hey mama

What are you doing, sitting here all alone in the dark?

Daddy won't be coming home.

That's what I heard him say

When he was going out the door.”

“I know, baby girl. And that’s why.

Right here on the edge of the evening

The quiet rushes in like a cool night wind.

It fills up my heart so it doesn't hurt any more

Makes it seem like tomorrow's on its way.

Right now nobody's in this house but me.

Tonight I don't need to beat the shadows away

Don't need to watch my step, my words, my look.

There was a time he filled up all my spaces

Along with his own.

There was that smell:

Old beer and sweat and diesel

Down in my lungs so I could never breathe .

There was that fist on the side of my face in the morning.

Too long ago, there used to be smiles

That same hand soft on my arm and no bruises

Because the coffee got cold.

But honey I’ve run clean out of flesh

Clean out of soul.

Tonight I wiped up the blood

And I washed my dress.

And when I gather up all the parts of me

I'm going to walk out in this pretty night.

I'll go downtown with my head up

Higher than it’s been in years.

And if I see that woman from across town

The one that hung her scent around his neck

Late of an evening when he should have been home

I'm going to pray my hardest

That she makes it too.”

Behind the Scenes: This poem is another of several inspired by my years as a crisis counselor in domestic violence services, watching women find their power after years of self-doubt and fear. Many of their experiences have found their way into my stories and poems.