O'Neil, "Early Memory"

I remember picking up a fistful

of sand, smooth crystals, like hourglass sand

and throwing it into the eyes of a boy. Johnny

or Danny or Kevin—he was not important.

I was five and I knew he would cry.

I remember everything about it—

the sandbox in the corner of the room

at Cinderella Day Care; Ms. Lee,

who ran over after the boy wailed for his mother,

her stern look as the words No snack formed on her lips.

My hands with their gritty, half-mooned fingernails

I hid in the pockets of my blue and white dress.

How she found them and uncurled small sandy fists.

There must have been such rage in me, to give such pain

to another person. This afternoon,

I saw a man pull a gold chain off the neck

of a woman as she crossed the street.

She cried out with a sound that bleached me.

I walked on, unable to help,

knowing that fire in childhood

clenched deep in my pockets all the way home.

January Gill O'Neil