I still lived in Little World then
Garfield books and the cabbage patch
a room painted peach, a box of seashells
a shoebox in my closet with a robin’s egg in it
a small world of other small worlds of boxes

so when he trapped me in the church kitchen
against the green tile wall, facing the double ovens
as my mother arranged egg-shaped candles
all down the long table in the other room,
when he smeared my glasses with the grease
from his cheeks, and then thanked me
for a kiss I never gave

I was as shocked as you are now, reading it

I didn’t tell because I didn’t know what to tell
or if it was a thing for telling. Instead, I went outside
to the church playground, to the top of the jungle gym

Little World

and I thought, Now I have a secret.
Everything has changed.

At last.