Don’t it bother you none
the way your pa calls for you
…Like a dog?
She laughs as she cleans the dirt
from beneath my fingernails
pushing hard against the tender skin

She sits in the white ladder-back chair
At the kitchen sink in her pressed pinafore
dipping my hand
in a basin full of soapy water
that smells like her bathroom
a mixture of lavender and rose

Her skin-white as flounder belly
contrasts with my tan chicken-feet fingers
Soap bubbles in the basin
reflecting light
from a window above the sink

Don’t it make you mad
she asks again
pushing harder with the file
how he whistles for you
…just like a dog

No, I say
Because it didn’t at the time
when I was four
in fact it was a comfort for me
to hear that sharp curt whistle
made with his fingers against his teeth

But when I got
to the early edge of my teens
and came to see Aunt Mattie laid in her casket
I wailed with a mixture of grief
and the first real knowing
of death

By that age…
When his whistle pierced the air
I’d be torn on which way to run
Not knowing what I’d find at home…
a hug, his belt, or the threat of
that bull whip, hung for decoration

It was to late to tell her
I’d changed my mind.