Things I Wish I Didn’t Know

// Katelyn Roth

When I try to draw a straight line, why does it sag
in the middle as if under the weight of something?
I mark that Clearblue ad about tracking
fertility as not relevant to me. My mom
told me she almost hit me once.

With a hairbrush, while brushing
my hair. Instead, she walked out
onto the balcony and closed

the sliding door and locked
my screams into the other room
and prayed. I understood

God as being what my mom needed
to keep from hitting me.
Which, of course she did

other times, over her knee. My earliest memory
in the California house, running from her
into her bedroom, caught
easily, secured across her lap for the
wooden spoon. She had read Difficult
Children would associate abuse with item
rather than parent. This wasn’t hitting, it was
discipline. Out the window,

while it was happening: the Red Flyer wagon
we rode in to the park tipped
on its side, downed brown
palm fronds on the patio, dropped
goldfish crackers, spilled bubbles staining
the concrete, California clouds
that never had rain for us.

She used to lean down, lean
in and say, someday, I hope you
have a little girl just
like you. Meaning, you
are my punishment.

Now that she knows I will have
no children, how much of her
grief is anger? I stole from her
the chance to say, see? You
could do no better.