Ordinary Person

The old house with its towering red gates,

two garages and imposing cornices

remembers the patriarch’s fists and seething

rage more than the timid woman

and the wimpy child do.

After all, he did shatter

its mirrors, break its tables and chairs

and stab its walls. The mansion with

its lawn and pink bougainvillaeas

running over its sides, stoically

bore the mad man’s caprices

and robustly watched whenever he

stood with his arms stretched out

like an archetypal prophet of wrath

and delivered his ultimatums. “Either

you take your son and get out, or I’ll

bloody force you out!” he’d scream, his

spittle coating the table on the veranda

like droplets of acid rain,

and the boy would cringe

while his mother looked down,

but the manor would silently stare at the despot,

wondering if it could will itself to grow limbs

and drag him into the concrete abyss.

And the tyrant discerning some oddity in

his house, perhaps wondering if the walls

were bulging, and the floor was

turning inwards, maybe sensing the myriad

invisible eyes watching him from the roof

would direct his hate at the product of

his money. “I built this!” He’d yell and

backhand the boy and go on all fours,

pushing things in his way and howling

like a lycanthrope, then slapping the

floor, he’d shriek: “This hurts me too!

You bastards!” and proceed to throttle the

woman while motes of dust settled

on the trembling child.