The Book of Ten

Dotage

 dotage n thirteen, fourteen, i’m still afraid of the dark so the light from the bathroom cuts a splinter of moon down the hall the night my mother stumbles past the open door of my room, her pink nylon nightgown wadded at her hips. i see that thousand-yard stare. thirteen, fourteen, i know what sex is, in theory anyway. i know it hurts. i’m glass, i’m willing myself to become shatterproof. years later, before she died, she told me what she’d hated about sex, that he always wanted a blow job. of course, she didn’t say “blow job,” she said something like “he wanted me to put it in my mouth.” and i could imagine him, the heavy weight of him, the wall, the will, the way he always insists, insists, insists. i could imagine him pressing the nape of her neck, holding her head against him until he shuddered into her, her fire-engine red lips staining the shaft. the way now, ninety-three— he can’t wipe his own ass, can’t wash his own cock—he screams over and over at the night nurse and calls her a goddamned bitch, screams all night and rattles the bars of the hospital bed we put in his bedroom, demands she go  to the bank, go right now, no matter it’s  a.m., go to the bank and get the deeds out of his lockbox because doesn’t she know someone is trying to steal his property? ...