by Brett Rutherford
What was your Christmas like?
they asked at school.
I changed the subject.
Stepfather sat at table end,
lording it over
his sage-infested stuffing,
whose scent concealed
the odor of rancid butter.
He often cooked
kielbasa, cheap meat
you could get by the foot,
from that unsigned place
expired food came from,
a gristle-tough lump
you would rather starve
than have its innards
within your own.
There was a room
in which a tinseled
Christmas tree blinked.
I never went into it:
the game-show and Western
television was not to be touched,
and the ashtray pyramid
of incipient lung disease
was never emptied.
Stepfather’s language
was all imperatives,
orders spat out
to the unwanted step-sons.
No praise was ever uttered,
no thanks. Years later I sit,
recalling,
he never addressed me once
by my own name.
How many ways, I wonder,
can an adult cancel
an unwanted child?
What did you do over Christmas?
they asked at school?
Left home for good, I said.
Best thing I ever did.
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