Different Slants

© August 22, 2014

Fifty years ago

This happened:

At five, six, seven years old

Curses and slaps

In the middle of the night

Eight, nine, ten years old

Beatings without end

And no reason

Eleven, twelve, thirteen years old

Trapped in closets,

Whipped with leather belts

Metal belt buckles

Fourteen: June 8, 1964

My long glass fish tank shattered

Water and dead fish everywhere

Bookshelves toppled

My face was smashed with fists

But I couldn’t hit her back

I escaped the monster

Screaming into the black night

(Read on …)

Robert M. Katzman’s Amazing Story: www.differentslants.com/?p=355

© August 2, 2014 

We were on a date late one starry night

On Rush Street near Lake Michigan

She was a pretty girl, sixteen

I was eighteen and at best, passable

***

We crossed the Oak Street Bridge to the beach

Stretching across wide Lake Shore Drive

Streams of headlights streaking each way

Beneath our feet as we moved toward the sand

Midnight, balmy and a good place to neck

(Read on …)