Three Things

“Three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”

—Buddha

The winter I left him I learned so many
things, the way people look at you when
you are suffering, as if your face has 
disappeared—you are floating headless
in the supermarket, you are the new moon.
What will you wear to Friendsgiving? You
slip in and out of sunlight. That winter, the sun 
was a chip of ice caught in my eye, working 
its way down to a sliver of hate in my guts. 
That winter too I discovered my father was 
ashamed of me, desired me, his illness stripping 
him of his sense and self-control, I, a woman 
like any other, my folded undies a source of 
fascination and horror. Having me again in 
his house like a ruined doll, a little waterlogged, 
a little worse for wear, tattooed and thin as
a lizard, the sun a searchlight, my father lunging 
out of the bedroom in a rage, his hands full of lace.