The rest of us,
trembling among our mothers’
bargain trench coats, waited
for Narnia. There, we dreamed
we were the children
of lions. Heirs to our own beds. Safe
in a closet rapturous with centaurs
in symphony with naiads and fauns. And I,
pink and young, swelled like a sinless sun. And I
pretended my father—
who had struck me then shoved me in—
would find my tomb empty
and repent. No, that is the adult talking.
I was a child then. It didn’t matter
what he’d done.
I still wanted to be found.