Vows

[71degrees]

After a man beats a woman,
he cannot see his own shame
hidden within his closed fist.
When he enters the house,
predetermined, front door
creaking like his own mother’s
faint and past pleading voice,
he listens to their bedsprings’ jangle
and feels compelled to drag
the woman, pulling her before the deep
witness of a mirror where he sees
his father’s face, a pig’s head,
confessing like Thomas what he can’t
believe he's done, not even
after his fingers probe
his own baffling wounds.

The closed fist is the starting point in this dreary, but well written poem. When he proceeded to "drag the woman" and stick her in front of a mirror and he saw his father's face I was at first baffled, thinking he was seeing his father's face where the woman's face was. That made no sense to me, but eventually . . . duh . . . I realized he was seeing his father's face where his was supposed to be. After I got over that problem the rest of the poem was smooth as silk.

Thanks for the show of support here. I'll take "dreary" and "smooth as silk" any day. Appreciate your thoughts.