What Does a Child Know?

A Formica table in the kitchen

is where they eat. Meat and three veg.

The child’s foster-mother—that’s what Child Welfare

call her—serves greens hard-boiled

till there’s no body left.

The child gags,

won’t swallow what she knows will kill her,

steals to the window when they leave and spits it out.

She feeds a lemon tree.

Food off the street tastes better.

“How dare you—I feed you!”

Her foster-father knows what she’s up to.

Under the house he puts other things in her mouth,

and pays her to keep it shut. This is the only touch

she knows.

Her foster-mother finds them.

“Get upstairs, I’ll deal with you.” The stairs, and then

the kitchen floor—

the child makes no sense of the woman’s yelling—

“You ungrateful little animal!”—

but can tell one more kick might kill her.

“Back then I had no words for it,

but knew what was sweet and what was not.”