You come home from a weekend with your Dad

Bathed in the scent of that other woman.

I can smell her stroking your hair—

Divining the fissures where your skull

Once folded upon itself

To ease the passage of your body from mine.

You sit beside me in secretive insolence

Not needing my caress.

Wrapped in the sweater she gave you,

Your heart encased in knotted wool—

I cannot reach you. Until tonight

When the shadows of your dreams

Creep upon you in the dark

And you cry out—afraid

Needing Mommy to close your closet door.

Danyelle Freeman is the Student Technology Center Coordinator

and a graduate student in Communications and Multimedia. She is

a published poet who also enjoys writing creative non-fiction. Her

other artistic endeavors include singing and playing her French

horn. She especially enjoys spending time with her husband and

two children.