Broken Glass

Broken Glass

Sometimes, when a glint of sunshine
winks at me from a piece of broken glass,
I'm haunted by memories
of the child who cries within me still.

The same child who, stuck
on a branch high in the olive tree, quivered like a leaf
as the growing shadow of panic filled her eyes,
and who shed her misery, drop by drop.

The same child who had collected
the most perfect, little, green olives
to decorate Daddy's special mud pie —
the one with "LOVE" carefully etched by stick —
and whose jar of gathered olives
slipped from her grip and shattered in the dirt below.

Daddy, annoyed at the broken glass, said,
"You'll find a way down by yourself."
Didn't he know I'd just lost my perfect olives?
Didn't he know I'd lost all my courage?
I bet he didn't know —
I'd just lost my faith in heroes.

Sometimes, from darkness, memories flash
and jab like a piece of broken glass.