The Orange Chair

When my father couldn't take anymore restriction in his life,

he hit me. The pretext oftenwas not responding quick enough

to an order barked to dry the dishesor wipe the table or take out

the trash—my nose in a comic book,or playing "fish" with my sister,

or sitting at the TV, parsingthe Stooges. And when he blows,

he yells and turns purple, the skyin the apartment darkens,

my neck skin prickles, the roomsours and goes gray. I know then

to jump and do it, no matter, butthis time too slowly, and he's

already charging like a train. Notcleverly, I slip my six-year-old self

under the orange chair in the living roomwith its high clearance, where Ellen

and I play dinosaur or house,and think of a toy father.

What I don't think aboutis how easily he lifts it off me,

a tornado tossing a house,and yanks me up with

a thick hairy arm for the pop. Later mother apologizes,

talking about him as if he'sa chair with a leg missing.

One night when I was twelve,after we'd moved into the house,

to punctuate some disputeabout the remote control,

him squinting, a ribbon of blue smokerising from his cigarette,

Ed Sullivan tight-lipped behind him,he slaps me and, eye to eye,

I slap him back and run.He never hits me after that, and I think

I've learned something until years laterwhen, howling at my own child,

I lunge at her in angerfrom a lack in my life

and recognize it all: darkened room,closed face, orange chair.