Wire Hangers

When you hold me, will you hold only my cocoa-buttered
              skin or will you hold my mother’s callous feet,
                           her cigarette-stained apron? Will you hold
       my grandfather’s charcoal lungs?
His beer cans? When you hold me, will you hold
                               my mother’s rough hand, raking
                                         nickels, food stamps from an unzipped wallet?
             Will you hold her morning prayers,
   her drum roll of tongues?
            And when you hold me, will you hold only the stars
                        inked to my ankle, or will you
                  hold my sister’s skinny arm
                                                      when I beat it out of its socket?

                                                                   Will you hold the wire hangers
                                                                                   in my father’s hand?
                                            And when you hold those wire hangers,
                             the wooden ones,
                      the yardsticks,
     will you hold my mother
                                down as my father whips her with them?

                                               Will you hold the small boy version
           of my father and hide him
                     in the trash can? Will you hold his father
back and put his knife
               down? And when you put my grandfather’s knife
                                 down, will you pull my father’s knife
       from my pregnant mother’s chest? Will you hold her
              until she sings again? Will you hold
                           their third miracle
                  daughter when she is born with her infant roar,
                        both knees? And when you hold me, will you hold
                                         only the lies I told our pastor— 
             or will you hold the police report that tells
                                      I hit the bathtub when he knocked me out?

And when the police knock
             and when the police knock
             again, and when the police knock
             year after year after day afternoon—when the police knock
                              that afternoon, will you hold our apartment door open

                                        and will you make me tell my father
                                                                                I forgive him
                                      because no one will hold him
             until I do, nine years older, wired
                                                      with my own beer cans,
                                                             my hanging tongues.

—EUGENIA LEIGH