The clasp

She was four, he was one, it was raining, we had colds,

we had been in the apartment two weeks straight,

I grabbed her to keep her from shoving him over on his

face, again, and when I had her wrist

in my grasp I compressed it fiercely, for almost a

second, to make an impression on her,

to hurt her, our beloved firstborn, I even nearly

savored the stinging sensation of the squeezing, the

expression, into her, of my anger,

"Never, never again," the righteous

chant accompanying the clasp. It happened very

fast–grab, crush, crush,

crush, release–and at the first extra

force, she swung her head, as if checking

who this was, and looked at me,

and saw me–yes, this was her mom,

her mom was doing this. Her dark,

deeply open eyes took me

in, she knew me, in the shock of the moment

she learned me. This was her mother, one of the

two whom she most loved, the two

who loved her most, near the source of love

was this.

Sharon Olds