Black Elephant
He’d turn up with their kids and a glass of
wine. New to the park. Maybe trying to
polish the scene of sprogs in dog shit shoes
chucking doggy-bag water bombs into
something a bit more refined.
One day she turned up with their kids and a
shiner. No trip into a cupboard this.
Too exact a coal black pit. But there was
no trying to hide it behind shades. She
flew it like a pirate flag
over the park, in battered broadside display.
She didn’t say and we didn’t ask
about what was so achingly stamped. She
just invited our silent surmise of
the black elephant.
Who’s sorry now? her bruised skull screamed. She’d screw
a penance from him to make mincemeat of
his puny hookâshe’d barbeque his good
name slow, on the spitting rotisserie
of public shame.
I never liked the woman. For all the
usual piss-poor reasons. She was pale
and unsmiling, unreadable, aloof.
Plus her son nearly blinded mine with a
kebab skewer.
The jab missed his eye by an inch.
They were only five, just kids trying to
kill each other in the usual way.
Could happen to anyone. Not her fault.
Though still we suckle blame.
He made the kid make cookies and bring them
to our door as an act of contrition.
I’ll grant him that. It was a nice little
lesson in actions and consequences
and the need for amends
a lesson he himself was now learning again.
I admired her guts turning up like that,
out of the blue with that shining black.
He wasn’t back in the park for a while, and
then without his glass of wine
swallowed by the badge of her brutal pride.