Fences

Fences My grandmother honed her cruelty, Religiously, the way she honed her long-handled sickle That hacked down every weed, every living thing, Between the house and the woods, Sharpened that hook-shaped tooth until it was stainless, Glistening, so that when she propped it, upside-down, Against the darkest corner of the shed, It glared like a demonic frown, overshadowing Everything in that graveyard ofbroken rakes and hoes — The way her cruelty overshadowed The kindness of her husband, my father's father, my grandfather — The man deafened by cannon fire in World War I, Who never again raised a finger, or a word, against anyone, Who stashed cookies in the spare tire ofhis Chevy, where his wife never pried, The cookies he shared with kids, barefooted and shirtless, Standing outside the carnival that camped on the riverfront each fall, Kids clinging to the chicken wire that separated them From brightly painted rides tilting toward the treetops, from laughter and piped music From cotton candy whose scent bathed both sides ofthe fence, Kids nobody wanted, except my grandfather, peering at their Astonished faces as he stuck in each kid's palm A shimmering silver dollar to go on the rides — My grandfather, the man of silence, who'd heard Nothing since that day, forty years ago, as he hunkered In a muddy trench, in a country whose language he did not speak, A young man who didn't know the last thing he'd ever hear Was a cannon blast that would change his life forever, That would seal out those larks singing in the lilacs behind his parent 's house, The blast that placed between him and the rest of the world An invisible fence shielding him against his wife, Against her legacy of anger that slowly chiseled its way Into the hearts of her children, the corner stones, where she hooked The barbed wire of her cruelty. ByIl Travis 167 ...