Ocean Motion by: Tung D. Nguyen, Gouache, 2013.
History Repeats
by: Cinthia Soto
The long abandoned role of father
my oldest always tried to fill.
There is a certain sadness he remembers.
Perhaps he knows that I still cry at midnight?
Once, his little sister,
in that awful teenage stage,
lashed at me with her vicious tongue
and he struck her in my defense.
Struck her and no remorse as she bled.
She looked up at me,
eyes begging for help.
The same look I’d always given,
I knew it too well.
I told my boy,
“You are your father’s son,
But you cannot solve things the way your father did.
After all,
your little sister
may be
someone’s mother one day.”